Caroline Mackay

BA, MA, PhD

Bio

Dr. Caroline Mackay is part of the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC) team, a multidisciplinary research group whose work focuses on risk and protective factors that impact health outcomes among marginalized youth. She is a second-generation Chinese/Scottish settler Canadian, and brings these cultural perspectives to her work. She did her PhD and Master’s in Social Psychology, looking at how group-based identity impacts mental health and collective action, with a focus on factors that empower individuals and groups to mobilize for climate change. Currently she is interested in investigating protective factors that foster resilience in mental health outcomes of migrant and LGBTQ+ youth.

Profile

Educational Background (Degree, School) 

• BA (Psychology), Simon Fraser University
• MA (Psychology), Simon Fraser University
• PhD (Psychology), Simon Fraser University

Affiliations & Links 

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre (SARAVYC)

Publications

• Passmore, H.-A., Mangat, A., Dhanoa, T., Schmitt, M. T., Mackay, C. M. L., Richardson, M., Howell, A.J., & Lutz. P. K. (2025). Enhancing personal and planetary wellbeing: A comparative study of the "3 Good Things" and "3 Good Things in Nature" interventions. International Journal of Wellbeing, 15(4), 4233, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v15i4.4233

• Lutz, A. E., Schmitt, M. T., Wright, J. D., & Mackay, C. M. L. (2025). Experimentally elevating environmental cognitive alternatives: Effects on activist identification, willingness to act, and opposition to new fossil fuel projects. Journal of Environmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102516

• Wright, J. D., Schmitt, M. T., & Mackay, C. M. L. (2022). Access to environmental cognitive alternatives predicts pro-environmental activist behaviour. Environment & Behavior, 54(3), 712-742. https://doi.org/10.1177/00139165211065008 

• Mackay, C. M. L., Schmitt, M. T., Lutz., A., & Mendel., J. (2021). Recent developments in the social identity approach to the psychology of climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1(42), 95-101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.04.009

• Mackay, C. M. L., Cristoffanini, F., Wright, J., Neufeld, S. D., & Schmitt., M. T. (2020). Connection to nature and environmental activism: Politicized environmental identity mediates a relationship between identification with nature and observed environmental activist behaviour. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 2, 100009. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2021.100009

• Mackay, C. M. L., & Schmitt, M. T. (2019). Do people who feel connected to nature do more to protect it? A meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 65, 101323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.101323

• Wright, J., Schmitt, M. T., Mackay, C. M. L., & Neufeld, S. D. (2020).  Imagining a sustainable world: Measuring cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo. Manuscript accepted for publication at Journal of Environmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101523

• Schmitt, M.T., Neufeld, S.D., Mackay, C.M.L., & Dys-Steenbergen, O. (2019). The perils of explaining climate inaction in terms of psychological barriers. Journal of Social Issues, Online First. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12360

• Schmitt, M. T., Mackay, C. M. L., Droogendyk, L. M., & Payne, D. (2019). What predicts environmental activism? The roles of identification with nature and politicized environmental identity. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 61, 20-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.11.003