The Psychology of Ocean Literacy

The Psychology of Ocean Literacy: Comparison

Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Abigail Zou and Version 1 by Brianna Le Busque.

Ocean Literacy (OL) can be broadly defined as a framework for understanding the complex and evolving relationships between people and the ocean. It is increasingly recognized as a vital component of marine conservation and sustainability efforts. OL is inherently interdisciplinary, and psychology, while being a particularly relevant field, remains an underutilized field in this space. This paper demonstrates how psychological theories, frameworks, and validated measures can meaningfully inform OL strategies across its ten proposed dimensions: knowledge, awareness, attitudes, behavior, activism, communication, emotional connections, access and experience, adaptive capacity, and trust and transparency.

blue humanities
environmental psychology
conservation psychology
marine education
ocean sustainability
ocean connections
ocean–human relationships
emoceans
ocean awareness

Ocean Literacy (OL) was first defined in the early 2000s to address the lack of ocean-related content in formal education. Since then, it has evolved into a broader, multidisciplinary framework for understanding the complex relationships between people and the ocean. This evolution is reflected in global initiatives such as the United Nations Ocean Decade Vision 2030, which identifies “restoring society’s relationship with the ocean” as one of its ten key challenges. Around the world, OL is increasingly recognized as a mechanism for engaging the public, informing policy, and supporting sustainable ocean futures [1,2]^[1][2].

OL is inherently interdisciplinary, and psychology is a particularly relevant, yet often underutilized, field. Environmental and conservation psychology explores reciprocal relationships between humans and nature ^[3]. While there are slight nuances between these two fields, including that conservation psychology emphasizes the promotion of conservation behaviors ^[4], the two terms are often interchanged and collectively offer valuable insights for building an ocean-literate society.

There are ten proposed dimensions of OL: knowledge, awareness, attitudes, behavior, activism, communication, emotional connections, access and experience, adaptive capacity, and trust and transparency ^[5]. This entry explores how psychological theories, frameworks, and measures can contribute to each of these dimensions. The aim is not to provide an exhaustive list or to suggest that all theories must be applied simultaneously. Also, given the inherent overlap between psychology and other disciplines, including, but not limited to, behavioral science, business, and education, some of the theories discussed in this entry, while relevant to psychology, are also used in these adjacent fields. The intention of this paper is not to claim that these theories are unique to psychology; rather, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate how psychology can meaningfully inform OL strategies and to offer a starting point for researchers, educators, and practitioners to draw from psychological science in ways that resonate with their OL work.

References

MacNeil, S.; Hoover, C.; Ostertag, J.; Yumagulova, L.; Glithero, L.D. Coming to terms with ocean literacy. Can. J. Environ. Educ. (CJEE) 2021, 24, 233–252.
Kelly, R.; Francis, P.; Shellock, R.J.; Andrews, S.; Arthur, B.; Birkmanis, C.A.; Breidahl, H.; Buxton, L.; Chambers, J.; Church, E. Ocean Literacy for Ocean Sustainability: Reflections from Australia. Ocean. Soc. 2025, 2, 9797.
Clayton, S.D.; Saunders, C.D. Introduction: Environmental and conservation psychology. In The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology; Oxford Academic Press: New York, NY, USA, 2012.
Saunders, C.D. The emerging field of conservation psychology. Hum. Ecol. Rev. 2003, 10, 137–149.
McKinley, E.; Burdon, D.; Shellock, R.J. The evolution of ocean literacy: A new framework for the United Nations Ocean Decade and beyond. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 2023, 186, 114467.