Climate change skepticism among adolescents

Abstract

However, only perceiving parents as having climate skeptical attitudes and low tolerance toward immigrants predicted an increase in climate change skepticism over the one-year period. Results are discussed in relation to earlier studies about climate change skepticism and socialization theories. Implications for climate change education are also discussed.

Social dominance orientation and climate change denial: The role of dominance and system justification

“…Thus, climate change seems to be disputed due to motivation to protect social as well as human-nature hierarchies at least with the set of variables used in the present study. However, the present study was conducted in a country with relatively environmental-friendly social norms (Ojala, 2015), which could explain why general system justification did not contribute to denial uniquely beyond SDO. Hence, the relation of denial with these two ideological variables could vary as a function of cultural context.…”

Climate change education and research: possibilities and potentials versus problems and perils?

“…Bord, O'Connor, and Fisher 2000;Leiserowitz 2004;Moser 2007;Hulme 2009;Leiserowitz, Maibach, and Roser-Renouf 2009;Myers et al 2012;Adger et al 2013;Cook et al 2013;Otieno et al 2014;Byrne et al 2014;Meeusen 2014;Capstick et al 2015;Theobald et al 2015;Pearse 2017;Kunkle and Monroe 2019), the role of evidence, argumentation, reasonableness, ideologies such as climate change denial, mental models and biases, cognitive challenges in comprehending visual representations and metadata projections, and expertise in designing and evaluating educational activities and communications about climate change (Shepardson et al 2012;Bentley, Petcovic, and Cassidy 2019;Sezen-Barrie, Shea, and Borman 2019b;Waldron et al 2019;Hestness, McGinnis, and Breslyn 2019;cf. CRED 2009;Taber and Taylor 2009;Dunlap and McCright 2011;M€ oser and Dilling 2011;Whitmarsh 2011;Kahan 2013;Niebert and Gropengiesser 2013;Moser 2016), strategies to identify 'leadership' in thought, education and politics, polarizations, disconnects, skepticism and obstacles (Boon 2010;Stevenson et al 2014;Ojala 2015;cf. Forter 2001;Nisbet and Kotcher 2009;Gonzalez-Gaudiano and Meira-Cartea 2010;Hoffman 2011;Sterman 2011;Whitmarsh 2011;Kahan et al 2012), niche and common...…”

Motivating Action through Fostering Climate Change Hope and Concern and Avoiding Despair among Adolescents

“…Ojala [16] found that young people displayed hope by putting trust in actions of politicians and researchers as well as expressed faith in their own and other citizens' ability to affect change. Ojala's [13,15,16,19,20] extensive work on climate change hope among Swedish adolescents strongly suggests that hope is a critical part of fostering climate action among younger generations. Insights from this research support the logical supposition that hope may work to overcome despair and provide a more productive response to concern, however, to our knowledge, these questions have not been empirically addressed.…”

“…Children and adolescents experience lower levels of perceived and actual control over their individual and collective actions than adults, which can make younger audiences particularly likely to experience despair in the face of climate change [13]. Though many young people are interested in global problems, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and pessimism are common [14][15][16], including 27% of Australian adolescents that believe the "world will end before they grow old" [17]. Given the critical role adolescents will play in shaping our response to climate change impacts and their susceptibility to negative emotions related to climate change, striking a balance between building concern and avoiding despair may be particularly key with this audience.…”