Rate My Professor Sonja Geiger

Sonja Geiger serves as a Lecturer in Psychology within the School of Psychology at Murdoch University, where she joined in April 2023. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Potsdam and completed her Habilitation in Germany focusing on innovative interventions to promote sustainable consumption. As an environmental psychologist, her academic interests center on fostering pro-environmental behaviors, sustainable consumption patterns, and the psychological drivers of ecological actions. Dr. Geiger's research examines how environmental knowledge and attitudes predict ecological behavior across cultures, the distinction between environment-specific and general knowledge in promoting sustainability, and the impact of mindfulness on sustainable practices. She explores cutting-edge approaches such as virtual reality simulations to enhance empathy and connectedness to nature, thereby generating collective action for climate change mitigation. Additionally, her work addresses sustainable habits formation through social influences, time wealth as a driver of well-being and eco-friendly choices, and factors influencing meat consumption and carbon footprint awareness.

Prior to Murdoch University, Dr. Geiger was affiliated with Justus-Liebig-University Gießen at the Chair for Consumer Research, contributing as a senior lecturer. Her influential publications include 'Measuring what matters in sustainable consumption: An integrative framework for the selection of relevant behaviors' (2018, Sustainability), cited extensively for its behavioral selection model; 'Environment-Specific vs. general knowledge and their role in pro-environmental behavior' (2019, Frontiers in Psychology); 'Mindfulness and sustainability: correlation or causation?' (2019, Current Opinion in Psychology); 'Time wealth: Measurement, drivers and consequences' (2021); and 'Underestimation of personal carbon footprint inequality in everyday life' (2024, Nature Climate Change). Other notable works cover compassion via virtual nature embodiment (2025) and situational influences on meat consumption (2024). Dr. Geiger has appeared in media, including 10 News First and Murdoch University articles, discussing virtual reality's environmental potential and habit-building for sustainability. Her research bridges psychology and sustainability, impacting academic discourse on behavioral interventions for planetary health.