Susan Clayton
President
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Professor, Department of Psychology
Term: August 2007-August 2008 |
Dr. Susan Clayton is an associate professor of social psychology. She received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1982 and her M.S., in 1984, and Ph.D., in 1987, both from Yale University. She is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) and a Fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). Clayton is on the editorial boards for Analysis of Social Issues and Policy (ASAP) and for Human Ecology Review (HER).
Her research interests can be roughly grouped into three categories: environment, gender, and justice. Regarding Environmental Psychology, she is interested in the natural environment. She is interested in understanding the way that people think about, and make personal connections to, the natural environment. Clayton has conducted a number of studies on the ways in which people decide what is fair in environmental conflict situations. More recently, she developed an Environmental Identity (EID) Scale, which is designed to assess the degree to which the natural environment plays an important part in the way in which people think about themselves. In 2003, she co-edited a book with Dr. Susan Opotow on Identity and the Natural Environment (MIT Press). This book presents a variety of empirical approaches to the ways in which people think about themselves with regard to the natural environment, and how the natural environment intersects with our group and social identities.