Rethinking Sustainability through Relationality: Why Non-WEIRD Cultures Matter

Recent research by Gould, Jimenez Naranjo, and Balvanera (2025) critiques a longstanding bias in sustainability science—its implicit reliance on psychological patterns typical of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies. These tendencies—marked by individualism, abstract moral universalism, and analytic reasoning—are frequently assumed to be universal despite representing only a small fraction of global psychological diversity.