Swen J. Kühne, PhD

Work at ZHAW

Position

Co-Head of Section Sustainability and Environmental Psychology

Focus

• Environmental Psychology
• Behavioral Insights
• Nudging

Teaching

• Environmental Psychology 1
• Environmental Psychology 2
• Study week in Groningen «Sustainability & Innovation»

Education and Continuing education

Education

• PhD / Psychology
  University of Basel
  08 / 2016 - 10 / 2020
• MSc / Applied Psychology
  ZHAW
  10 / 2013 - 07 / 2015
• BSc / Applied Psychology
  ZHAW
  09 / 2010 - 07 / 2013

Continuing Education

Certificate in Higher Education Didactics
University of Basel
05 / 2020

Network

Membership of networks

• Behavioral Insights for Better Politics and Societies
• International Association of People-Environment Studies

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8326-9168

Social media

linkedin

Projects

• Designing for Neurodiversity: A Co-Created Living Lab on Sensory Rooms in Higher Education / Team member / ongoing
• NexTArc: Next Generation Open Innovations in Trustworthy Embedded AI Architectures for Smart Cities, Mobility and Logistics / Team member / ongoing
• From Claim to Evidence: Assessing the Effectiveness of Art and Design for Sustainability / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Climate-Escape: The playful communication of climate and behavior change / Co-project leader / ongoing
• «Being a Spider» - Virtual realities as spaces for learning and experience / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Beyond Grey Walls: A Living Lab Unveiling the Benefits of Biophilic Design in University Classrooms / Deputy project leader / completed
• Towards Sensory-Inclusive Office Environments for Workers with ADD/ADHD / Team member / completed
• Farm to Table 2.0 - Wädenswil Edition / Team member / completed
• Designing Environments that promote learning for Children and Adolescents with ADHD and ASD / Project leader / completed
• Farm to Table in Toni Areal / Team member / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Gomm, S. et al. (2026) 'Comparing and combining theory of planned behavior and dragons of inaction to explain pro-environmental consumption behavior', Sustainable Production and Consumption, 66, pp. 1–17. doi: 10.1016/j.spc.2026.04.008.
• Kühne, S. J. et al. (2026) 'How psychological and contextual barriers to environmentally sustainable consumption vary across domains : a comparative study of food, electronics, and clothing in Switzerland', Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 21(100423). doi: 10.1016/j.clrc.2026.100423.
• Laasner Vogt, L. et al. (2024) 'The number of pictograms about side effects on the medication package influences medication risk perception', European Journal of Psychology Open, 83(2), pp. 71–81. doi: 10.1024/2673-8627/a000058.
• Kühne, S. J. and Reijnen, E. (2023) 'Buy solar, get cashback : do consumer subsidies described as promotions influence electricity choices?', Frontiers in Psychology, 14(1155556). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1155556.
• Kühne, S. J. et al. (2023) 'Can carbon labels encourage green food choices?', Frontiers in Psychology, 13(902869). doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.902869.
• Reijnen, E. et al. (2023) 'Do pictograms on medication packages cause people to consult package inserts less often? If so, with what consequences?', Behavioral Sciences, 13(8), p. 696. doi: 10.3390/bs13080696.
• Reijnen, E. et al. (2022) 'Well-designed medical pictograms accelerate search', Applied Ergonomics, 103(103799). doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2022.103799.
• Kühne, S. J. et al. (2022) 'Labels affect food choices, but in what ways?', Nutrients, 14(15), p. 3204. doi: 10.3390/nu14153204.
• Reijnen, E., Kühne, S. J. and Ritter, R. (2021) 'A healthier beverage choice is based on a subjective assessment of sweet taste', Journal of Food Research, 10(2), pp. 47–55. doi: 10.5539/jfr.v10n2p47.
• Kühne, S. J., Reijnen, E. and Ritter, R. (2021) 'Appliance-based solar certificates : a new way of going green', Energy Policy, 148(111986). doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111986.
• Reijnen, E. et al. (2019) 'Choosing or rejecting a food item, does framing matter? And what has sugar to do with it!', Appetite, 143(104410). doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2019.104410.
• Reijnen, E. et al. (2019) 'Nudged to a menu position: the role of "I'm Loving It"!', Journal of Consumer Policy, 42(3), pp. 441–453. doi: 10.1007/s10603-019-09413-4.
• Kühne, S. J., Reijnen, E. and Crameri, A. (2019) 'When too few is bad for the environment : choice set size and default effects for electricity products', Swiss Journal of Psychology, 79(1), pp. 35–41. doi: 10.1024/1421-0185/a000232.

Books, peer-reviewed

Kühne, S. J. (2020) Nudging healthy food and sustainable choices. Doctoral dissertation. Universität Basel. doi: 10.5451/unibas-ep79035.

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

Kühne, S. J. (2026) 'Nudging in hospitality and tourism', in International Encyclopedia of Business Management. Elsevier, pp. 355–359. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-443-13701-3.00231-0.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Sorvali, J. and Kühne, S. (2024) 'Farmers' dragons – psychological barriers to proenvironmental behavior in agriculture', in 28th International Conference Association People-Environment Studies, Barcelona, Spain, 2-5 July 2024.
• Hartmann, C., Bortoluzzi, F. and Kühne, S. J. (2024) 'Serving up sustainability in the canteen : psychological evaluation of a culinary living lab in a university canteen', in 28th International Conference Association People-Environment Studies, Barcelona, Spain, 2-5 July 2024.
• Kühne, S. J. et al. (2024) 'Consumers' barriers to sustainable actions : a multi-language evaluation of the Dragons of Climate Inaction Psychological Barrier Scale', in 28th International Conference Association People-Environment Studies, Barcelona, Spain, 2-5 July 2024.
• Catarci, D. et al. (2023) 'Online food choices : when does "recommended by" work?', in 45th European Conference on Visual Perception, Paphos, Cyprus, 27-31 August 2023. Winterthur: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-28650.
• Laasner Vogt, L. et al. (2023) 'Verbal or visual representation of side effects : does this affect the judgement of driving behavior?', in 45th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), Paphos, Cyprus, 27-31 August 2023.
• Scharowski, N. et al. (2023) 'Certification labels for trustworthy AI : insights from an empirical mixed-method study', in Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 248–260. doi: 10.1145/3593013.3593994.
• Kühne, S. J., Reijnen, E. and Bremermann-Reiser, S. M. (2022) 'Does unpacking the carbon footprint affect travel choices?', in Society for Judgment and Decision Making Annual Meeting, San Diego, USA, 10-13 November 2022. Available at: https://sjdm.org/presentations/2022-Poster-Kuehne-Swen-Support-Unpacking-Footprint.pdf.
• Kühne, S. J. and Reijnen, E. (2022) 'Buy solar, get cash back : do rebate description of subsidies influence your electricity choice?', in 27th International Association for People-Environment Studies (IAPS) Conference, Lisboa, Portugal, 4-8 July 2022.
• Laasner Vogt, L., Kühne, S. J. and Reijnen, E. (2022) 'Do visual aids on medication packages make your drug use safer?', in Vision Science Society 2022, St. Pete Beach, FL, USA, 13-18 May 2022. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-26028.
• Kühne, S. J., Hackenfort, M. and Reijnen, E. (2017) 'It's time to switch: when do consumers switch to more energy-efficient appliances', in Garcia Mira, R. et al. (eds) Book of abstracts : International Conference on Envirionmental Psychology, p. 295.
• Kühne, S. J., Hackenfort, M. and Reijnen, E. (2016) 'Energy efficient technology - badly communicated : the importance of energy label design', in Cognitive Psychology Section Annual Conference. British Psychological Society, p. 73.

Other publications

• Hartmann, C., Kühne, S. J. and Meier, R. (2025) Kurzforschungsbericht «Klimabewusst, aber trotzdem im Flugmodus: Barrieren beim Flugverzicht im Kontext der Stadt Zürich – eine umweltpsychologische Einschätzung». Zürich: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-34339.
• Bortoluzzi, F. et al. (2024) Forschungsbericht FARM TO TABLE : saisonal, regional, nachhaltig - kulinarisches Forschungsprojekt. Zürich: ZHdK Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-30831.
• Blumer, Y. et al. (2024) Swiss Sustainable Consumption Observatory (SSCO) 2021-2023 : key insights from the first three waves. ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-2496.

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

• Weber, C. et al. (2026) 'Context-dependent sensory stress appraisal and coping in office environments : a socio-ecological study among adults with ADHD', in Symposium on (Neuro)diversity in the Workplace, Leuven, Belgium (online), 21 January 2026.
• Kühne, S. J., Reijnen, E. and Bremermann-Reiser, S. M. (2023) 'A little thanks misses the mark : does communicating gratitude affect green travel choices?', in International Conference of Environmental Psychology (ICEP), Aarhus, Denmark, 20-23 June 2023.
• Kühne, S. J. et al. (2021) 'Can CO2e labels encourage green food choices?', in International Conference on Environmental Psychology, Siracusa, Italy, 5-8 October 2021.

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