Susan Clayton is professor of social and environmental psychology at the College of Wooster, where she has taught courses in Environment and identity, Sustainability, Environmental Psychology, and Humans and other animals. Clayton received her Ph.D. in social psychology from Yale University. Her research examines people’s relationship with the natural environment; she has written about the effects of climate change on mental health, and about climate anxiety in particular. She is a lead author on the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Susan D. Clayton PhD
Professor of Psychology
The College of Wooster
Areas of Expertise
Publications
Charlson, F., et al. (2021). Global priorities for climate change and mental health research. Environment International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106984
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, E. Mayall, E., van Susteren, L. (2021). A global survey of climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change.
Lancet Planetary Health. Balmford, A., Bradbury, R. B., Bauer, J. M., Broad, S., Burgess, G., Burgman, M., Byerly, H., Clayton, S.,… & Nielsen, K. S. (2021). Making more effective use of human behavioural science in conservation interventions. Biological Conservation, 261, 109256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109256
Nielsen, K., Marteau, T., Bauer, J., Bradbury, R., Broad, S., Burgess, G., Burgman, M., Byerly, H., Clayton, S., Espelosin, D., Ferraro P., Fisher, B., Garnett, E., Jones, J., Otieno, M., Polasky, S., Ricketts, T., Trevelyan, R., van der Linden, S., Verissimo, D., & Balmford, A. (2021). Biodiversity conservation as a promising frontier for behavioral science. Nature Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01109-5
Baker, C., Clayton, S., & Bragg, E. (2020). Educating for resilience: Parent and teacher perceptions of children’s emotional needs in response to climate change. Environmental Education Research, 27, 687-705.
Clayton, S. (2020). Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102263
Clayton, S. (2020). The insidious impacts of climate change: Mood, mental health, and psychosocial well-being. OneEarth, 2, 530-531.
Clayton, S., & Karazsia, B. (2020). Development and validation of a measure of climate change anxiety. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 69.
Clayton, S., Bexell, S., Ping, X., Zhihe, A., Jing, L.W., Wei, C. H., & Yan, H. (2018). Confronting the wildlife trade through public education at zoological institutions in Chengdu, China. Zoo Biology.