Defining human critical determinants for sustainability: asking psychologists could help

Why are sustainability goals so hard to achieve? In a recent Note & Comment, Santos et al. (Sustain Sci 19:1097–1105, 2024) call for an examination of ‘human critical determinants’ as barriers to the achievement of sustainability goals. We fully support this call. However, we argue that the vital role played by ‘inner worlds’ cannot be understood if abstracted away from the context in which cognition is situated., i.e., it is not just ‘inner worlds’ that must be accounted for, but also their place within their broader situational and social contexts. We recommend future research in sustainability science consider the evidence and frameworks accumulated by psychologists on what humans, as socially and culturally situated organisms, need to thrive, and we explain why this interdisciplinarity could be transformative towards achieving the goals of sustainability science.