Emotions, Worry, Efficacy, and Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors among a Representative Sample of Texas and Florida Residents

Abstract

Individual (e.g., eating less meat, electric car use) and collective (e.g., petition signing, donating money to environmental causes) climate change mitigation behaviors are necessary to thwart the worst effects of the escalating climate crisis. Psychological factors including positive and negative emotional states, worry, and efficacy have been implicated as key correlates of these behaviors; however, little research has explored these relationships in representative samples at high risk for exposure to climate-related hazards (e.g., hurricanes, heat waves, flooding). We assessed climate-change mitigation behaviors in an ongoing study of a probability-based representative sample of 1,479 Texas and Florida residents repeatedly exposed to climate-related hazards including hurricanes, heat waves, flooding, and tornadoes. Controlling for demographics, behavior-related positive emotions (PA) and negative emotions (NA) correlated with engagement in performing greater number of collective (PA: IRR = 2.06, p < .001; NA: IRR = 1.46, p = .030) climate-change mitigation behaviors; individual-level behaviors were associated with PA (IRR = 1.18, p < .001). However, NA was fully mediated by worry about climate-related hazards, which in turn was mediated by worry about climate change specifically. PA was fully mediated by efficacy. In fully adjusted models examining individual emotions, hope, worry about climate change, and behavioral efficacy remained statistically significant predictors of performing greater individual and collective climate-change mitigation behaviors (all ps < .05). Results suggest worry about the climate crisis may be adaptive and that feelings of hope, relative to other emotions (both positive and negative), may be effective at spurring pro-environmental behaviors. Scalable interventions should explore leveraging these psychological experiences to promote climate-change mitigation behaviors.