About Rainer Romero-Canyas

Rainer Romero-Canyas

Lead Senior Behavioral Social Scientist

Contact

New York City Office

Work

Areas of expertise:

Social psychology of sustainability; climate change communication; behavioral interventions; experimental design

Rainer Romero-Canyas is a social and personality psychologist and EDF's Lead Senior Behavioral Social Scientist. His research has focused on the social and cognitive processes that influence how people think, feel and behave around environmental issues.

In addition to research, Rainer advises EDF and its partners on how to utilize insights from psychological and social sciences in the design of programs and projects at EDF.

Background

Member of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), Association for Psychological Science (APS).

PhD, Columbia University (Psychology) BA, Yale University (Psychology)

Publications

Lau, E. H., Rattan, A., Romero-Canyas, R., & Savani, K. (2022). Culturally relevant frames increase individuals’ motivation to contribute to carbon emissions offsets. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 53(10), 1211–1234. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221221110465

Edmondson, D., Conroy, D., Romero-Canyas, R., Tanenbaum, M., & Czajkowski, S. (2022). Climate change, behavior change and health: a multidisciplinary, translational and multilevel perspective. Translational behavioral medicine, 12(4), 503–515. https://doi.org/10.1093/tbm/ibac030

Skurka, C., Romero-Canyas, R., Joo, H. H., & Niederdeppe, J. (2022). Choose your own emotion: predictors of selective exposure to emotion-inducing climate messages. Environmental Communication, 16(3), 424-431. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2022.2083207

Skurka, C., Romero-Canyas, R., Joo, H. H., Acup, D., & Niederdeppe, J. (2022). Emotional appeals, climate change, and young adults: a direct replication of Skurka et al. (2018). Human Communication Research, 48, 147–156. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqab013

Preston, S. D., Liao, J. D., Toombs, T. P., Romero-Canyas, R., Speiser, J., & Seifert, C. M. (2021). A case study of a conservation flagship species: The monarch butterfly. Biodiversity and Conservation, 30, 2057–2077. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02183-x

Romero-Canyas, R., & Hiltner, S. (2020). Scaling up and out: psychological science in the service of promoting sustainable consumption. Journal of Social Issues. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12375 

Marin-Monroy, E. A., Romero-Canyas, R., Fraire-Cervantes, J. A., Larson-Konar, D., & Fujita, R. (2020). Compliance with rights-based fisheries management is associated with fishermen’s perceptions of peer compliance and experience: A case study in the Upper Gulf of California. Ocean & Coastal Management, 189, 105155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105155 

Hardisty, D. J., Beall, A. T., Lubowski, R., Petsonk, A., & Romero-Canyas, R. (2019). A carbon price by another name may seem sweeter: Consumers prefer upstream offsets to downstream taxes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 66, 101342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.101342 

Lu, H., Romero-Canyas, R., Hiltner, S., Neltner, T., McCormick, L., & Niederdeppe, J. (2019). Research to Move Toward Evidence-Based Recommendations for Lead Service Line Disclosure Policies in Home Buying and Home Renting Scenarios. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(6), 963. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16060963 

Hiltner, S., Romero-Canyas, R., McCormick, L., & Neltner, T. (2019). Using online tools to publicize lead service line locations and promote replacement. AWWA Water Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/aws2.1124 

Battista, W., Romero-Canyas, R., Smith, S. L., Fraire, J., Effron, M., Larson-Konar, D., & Fujita, R. (2018). Behavior Change Interventions to Reduce Illegal Fishing. Frontiers in Marine Science, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00403 

Bencharit, L. Z., Ho, Y. W., Fung, H. H., Yeung, D. Y., Stephens, N. M., Romero-Canyas, R., & Tsai, J. L. (2018). Should job applicants be excited or calm? The role of culture and ideal affect in employment settings. Emotion. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000444 

Pearson, A. R., Schuldt, J. P., & Romero-Canyas, R. (2016) Social climate science: a new vista for psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5),632-650. doi: 10.1177/1745691616639726