Harrison Schmitt

The University of Arizona | UA · Department of Psychology

Psychological research has shown that lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals experience higher levels of stress and tend to cope in more present‐oriented ways. While some research in the field has sought to, for instance, increase future‐oriented ways of being among lower SES individuals, we argue that such approaches may come at significant...

The experience of chronic environmental contamination (CEC) is an increasingly prevalent environmental hazard faced by communities around the world. Evidence suggests that this experience can be psychologically stressful. However, CEC is an of often-overlooked environmental justice issue and collective action problem in the psychology literature. W...

The experience of long-term exposure to environmental contaminants, or chronic environmental contamination (CEC), is an increasingly common environmental hazard with deleterious physical and mental health outcomes. CEC is also an environmental justice issue, as communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately face such hazards. Re...

Foundational theories in social psychology tend to focus on the individual’s phenomenological experience, and to conceive of the environment and the individual as discrete entities. To overcome the ontological and epistemological limitations of such perspectives, we propose a theory rooted in culturally oriented existential philosophy. This socioma...

Coloniality describes the way in which racialized conceptions of being, personhood, and morality inherent in colonial regimes are maintained long after the formal end of colonial enterprises. Central to coloniality has been the material and psychological colonization of space and time, largely by Western and industrialized nations. We propose the i...

A body of psychological and social scientific evidence suggests that the experience of technological disaster or long-term exposure to environmental contamination can be psychologically stressful. Addressing the psychosocial impact in communities living with chronic contamination is therefore a vital part of improving their resilience. Guided by a...

We sought to undertake a systematic review to assess the current research and to provide a platform for future research on the psychological health impact of chronic environmental contamination (CEC). CEC is the experience of living in an area where hazardous substances are known or perceived to be present in air, water, or soil at elevated levels...

Narrative psychologists have increasingly sought to understand how cultural, collective narratives relate to individual life narratives. Two promising approaches are the study of how cultural master narratives influence personal narratives, and the study of generativity. These developments need to be extended through analysis of the ‘politics of st...

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore the per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure experience and associated stressors, to inform public health efforts to support psychosocial health and resilience in affected communities. Semi-structured interviews (n = 9) were conducted from July–September 2019 with community members...

A body of psychological and social scientific evidence suggests that the experience of technological disaster or long-term exposure to environmental contamination can be psychologically stressful. Addressing the psychosocial impact in communities living with chronic contamination is therefore a vital part of improving their resilience. We undertook...

This essay examines people’s responses to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of existential psychology. The existential anxieties associated with the pandemic, as well as people’s responses to them, can be understood and articulated through Sartre’s concept of bad faith. Using this existential lens, we examine the ways in which peop...

Many people live in circumstances of environmental suffering: exposure to contaminated natural resources and toxic chemicals due to a history of accident or misuse. Environmental suffering is disproportionately experienced by politically, ethnically, and economically disadvantaged group members. An analysis rooted in the concept of false consciousn...

The present study serves as an exploratory investigation of the role of social class in responses to the threat of future debt. Previous work has shown that individuals of high and low subjective social class differ in the ways that they respond to a broad range of threats and uncertainties about the future. Across three studies, we found that lowe...

Nietzsche (1887) wrote extensively about the cultural underpinnings of the psychological entanglement of indebtedness and guilt and shame. Recent work from outside of psychology has updated Nietzsche’s conjectures about debt and guilt/shame, showing that the neoliberal economic system and the internalization of free-market economic principles are f...

The relationship between religion and identity has been a fundamental but elusive inquiry throughout the history of the social sciences, from Durkheim’s classic work to the recent rise of experimental existential psychology (XXP). The psychology of religion in general, and XXP in particular, has tended in recent years toward unidimensional, quantit...

The present study sought to investigate the relationship between the time perspectives and environmental concern. Time perspective concerns the degree to which each temporal dimension (past, present, and future) affects a person’s thoughts and behavior. This study utilized the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and the New Ecological Paradi...

Participants described their current and future life satisfaction and answered questions concerning the pace of their lives, the extent to which they feel stuck in the present, plan out their days in advance, feel busy, and feel rushed. Three diverse groups were sampled: homeless individuals in Fresno, California, Fresno State University students,...

This study examines a capabilities approach to human intersexual flirtation (HIF). It is based on Wallace’s abilities based approach to personality psychology (1966). He differentiating between a typical response, what the individual usually does, and a maximal response. Paulhus and Martin (1987) found capability ratings were higher than trait rati...

Rusch, Leunissen, and van Vugt (2015) found that American World War II soldiers who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor (demonstrating bravery, among other mental fitness indicators) had significantly more children during their lifetime than a comparative group of World War II veterans. The present study sought to find a similar trend in a cur...

The present study examined the relationship between different dimensions of time and psychological well-being in three groups that differ profoundly on many factors: (1) Homeless individuals living in tent-like housing at a homeless resource center (The Poverello House); (2) HIV positive individuals at The Living Room, (a support center at a free m...