Psychological Pathways for Sustainable Relationships: Transcendent Emotion, Animistic Belief, and Moral Reasoning Within an Embodied Ecology

This scoping review outlines psychological pathways that foster attunement with self, others, and the planet in service of a future composed of more sustainable relationships. Shifts in the social and sustainability sciences represent a relational turn, one that focuses on the interconnectedness of the human and more-than-human earth. In this review, we explore how psychologists can deepen their relational and ecological orientations by attending to the interdisciplinary work that has been done and still needs doing, all in service of personal, interpersonal, and planetary health. Sustainable relationships maintain mutuality, balance, and harmony, minimize harm, and maximize equity, in ways that are viable and persist over time. In this paper, we explore a psychological framework for sustainable relationships through the lens of embodied ecology—a perspective that foregrounds relations instead of bounded entities. Embodied ecology encompasses and transcends ontology and epistemology, where individual and wider relations are in a constant state of motion: being and becoming mutually interdependent. We examine three psychological dimensions of sustainable relationships through the lens of embodied ecology: (1) transcendent moral emotions (2) relational animistic beliefs, and (3) relational moral reasoning. This scoping review provides a conceptual map of psychology’s role in understanding sustainable relationships.