Behavioral Sustainability Lab

Jiaying Zhao, PhD, Professor

Our Team

Dr. Jiaying Zhao

Principal Investigator

Annie Lalande

PhD Student

Jade Radke

PhD Student

Simon Sheppard

Master's Student

Hayley Simpson

Master's Student

See all

Our Vision

We want to see a world without poverty or environmental crises, a world where we thrive sustainably.

Research Mission

We use psychological principles and insights to design behavioral solutions to solve financial and environmental sustainability challenges. We do so by running field and lab experiments to promote behavior change in resource conservation, waste reduction, climate mitigation, and financial independence. These experiments draw upon principles and methods from cognitive science, judgment and decision making, behavioral economics, and social psychology. Crucially, our work demonstrates the value of psychology in addressing urgent societal problems and informing the design and implementation of public policy. We are currently investigating the following six lines of research:

Publications

O’Hara, C. C., Baez-Schon, M., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Cheng, S., Echeverri, A., Galford, G. L., Gould, R. K., Mancilla, C. L., Muldoon, M. C., Singh, G., Baltezar, P., Kuwayama, Y., Polasky, S., Rodewald, A. D., Sharp, R. P., Tennant, E., Zhao, J., & Halpern, B. S. (2026). A systematic map of methods for assessing societal benefits of earth science information. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(6), e2524370123.
Radke, J., Guan, S., Dunn, E., & Zhao, J. (2026). How do-more-good frames influence climate action likelihood and anticipated happiness. Frontiers in Communication, 11, 1693311.
Dunn, E. & Zhao, J. (2026). Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species. Avery, Penguin Random House, NY.
Radke, J. & Zhao, J. (2026). Cognitive foundations of climate solutions. Chapter in The Psychological Foundations of Climate Solutions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.