Désirée joined the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Lab as a PhD student in September 2022. She completed the Bachelor in psychology (2020) at the University of Pécs in Hungary and the Research Master in Behavioral and Social Sciences (2022), with a specialization in environmental psychology, at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

For her PhD, she is supervised by Dr. Nadja Contzen from the aquatic research institute Eawag and Prof. Dr. Tobias Brosch from the University Geneva. Her workplace is at Eawag, Dübendorf in the environmental social science department, more specifically in the environmental health psychology group.

Her PhD project named REVALUE is concerned with the value approach in environmental psychology. Research in environmental psychology applies personal values to explain environmentally relevant beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and decisions as well as to develop impactful interventions. Such research should be based on a comprehensive theoretical framework informed by state of the art research and on precise measurement instruments. Yet, both are lacking. To date, the values considered are relatively limited and the value framework is not comprehensive enough to research newer topics such as climate change adaptation and individual health concerns.

The REVALUE project aims to address shortcomings of the current value approach in environmental psychology by developing and testing a refined value typology and new measurement instruments. Altogether, REVALUE is a first step to a refined, universal value approach for environmental psychology that will have greater predictive power and provide more precise insights into the value underpinnings of environmental choices.

Contact information
Désirée F. Schmid
Eawag
Department of Environmental Social Sciences
Überlandstrasse 133
8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland

Desiree.schmid[at]eawag.ch