From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing

Stanley, Samantha K.; Hogg, Teaghan L.; Leviston, Zoe; Walker, Iain

doi:10.1016/j.joclim.2021.100003

Cited by 297 publications

(300 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

193

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Accordingly, the perception of threat and worry about climate change can motivate support of climate action and policies (Leiserowitz, 2006;Mayer et al, 2017;Smith & Leiserowitz, 2014), through an increase in perceived personal responsibility (Bouman et al, 2020). Furthermore, being a bystander to severe collective climate damage could intensify anger and motivate people to take personal responsibility (Kleres & Wettergren, 2017;Stanley et al, 2021).…”

Section: Pro-environmental Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxiety and Climate Change: A Validation of the Climate Anxiety Scale in a German-Speaking Quota Sample and an Investigation of Psychological Correlates

Wullenkord¹,

Tröger²,

Hamann³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The climate crisis is an unprecedented existential threat that causes disturbing emotions, such as anxiety. However, relatively little is known about how people cope with climate anxiety, how it influences mental health and well-being, and whether it is relevant for climate (in)action. Recently, Clayton and Karazsia measured climate anxiety as a “clinically significant anxious response to climate change” (2020, p. 9) that may impair human well-being and functioning. To gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon from an empirical psychological perspective, we translated the Climate Anxiety Scale into German and assessed potential correlates in a large German-speaking quota sample (N=1011, stratified by age and gender). Overall, people reported low levels of climate anxiety. Climate anxiety correlated positively with anxiety and depressiveness, avoidance of climate change in everyday life, and the frustration of basic psychological needs. It correlated negatively with climate-relevant self-protective strategies and denial. While unrelated to ideological beliefs, stronger climate anxiety was associated with pro-environmental intentions and support for climate policies. We were not able to replicate the scale’s original factor structure. Thus, we encourage researchers to rework the scale and include an emotional factor in future research efforts.

show abstract

Section: Pro-environmental Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxiety and Climate Change: A Validation of the Climate Anxiety Scale in a German-Speaking Quota Sample and an Investigation of Psychological Correlates

Wullenkord¹,

Tröger²,

Hamann³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Anxiety exerts inconsistent motivational effects: in many cases, anxiety (or fear) can alert individuals to health and environmental threats, thus promoting action and information seeking (Tannenbaum et al 2015 ; van Zomeren et al 2010 ), but it can alternatively promote psychological avoidance and defensiveness (Kim and Niederdeppe 2013 ; O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole 2009 ; Stanley et al 2021 ). Anger is an approach-oriented emotion that arises in response to perceived injustice (Van Doorn et al 2014 ), and can either facilitate cooperation and motivate pro-social action toward societal threats (such as when it is directed toward those seen as culpable for causing climate change; Jones and Davison 2021 ; Kleres and Wettergren 2017 ; Stanley et al 2021 ) or can be associated with anti-social or aggressive action (such as when individuals experience reactance toward perceived freedom threats of public health recommendations; Dillard and Peck 2000 ). Feeling exhausted or bored in response to threats (e.g., “COVID fatigue”) might be associated with disengagement (a lack of action; e.g., Geiger et al 2021b ) as individuals lose motivation due to fatigue or a lack of psychological meaning associated with behaviors (Markowitz et al 2013 ; Westgate and Wilson 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating similarities and differences in individual reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How can individuals’ responses to the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic be used to inform constructive responses for climate action? We present an exploratory, mixed-methods investigation ( N = 1784 US adults) into similarities and differences in individuals’ reactions to COVID-19 and climate change in June 2020. Participants identified many similarities between the issues, indicating that both are harmful to public health, politically polarizing, have global impacts, and have solutions. Participants also perceived many differences between the two threats: many perceived COVID-19 as medical, natural, and on a shorter timescale, while many perceived climate change as environmental, human caused, and on a longer timescale. Emotional reactions to each topic predict topic-relevant behaviors, but more strongly, and with a broader range of emotional reactions, for climate change than COVID-19. Open-ended responses show that hope was elicited for both issues in response to contemplating taking collective and individual actions, and despair was elicited for both issues in response to perceiving that others do not take the issues seriously. Finally, participants perceived that they were engaging in relatively more COVID-19 mitigation behaviors and some climate change mitigation behaviors than others (i.e., the “better-than-average” effect). Many participants believed others were relatively unconcerned about both threats because of the invisibility of the threats, ignorance, and elite cues (e.g., then-President Trump downplaying the threat). Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10584-021-03143-8.

show abstract

“…For example, the 'flygskam' movement in Sweden seeks to stigmatize unnecessary air travel and encourage train travel instead [42,43]. Psychological costs include eco-anxiety and eco-anger [34], moral considerations for current and future humans, and concern after having witnessed extreme weather events [30,44]. It is an open question whether these personal costs of climate are sufficient in reality to overcome all mitigation costs and lead to collective mitigation as figure 2 suggests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When conflicts get heated, so does the planet: coupled social-climate dynamics under inequality

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate dynamics are inextricably linked to processes in social systems that are highly unequal. This suggests a need for coupled social-climate models that capture pervasive real-world asymmetries in the population distribution of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change and climate (in)action. Here, we use evolutionary game theory to develop a social-climate model with group structure to investigate how anthropogenic climate change and population heterogeneity coevolve. We find that greater homophily and resource inequality cause an increase in the global peak temperature anomaly by as much as 0.7°C. Also, climate change can structure human populations by driving opinion polarization. Finally, climate mitigation achieved by reducing the cost of mitigation measures paid by individuals tends to be contingent upon socio-economic conditions, whereas policies that achieve communication between different strata of society show climate mitigation benefits across a broad socio-economic regime. We conclude that advancing climate change mitigation efforts can benefit from a social-climate systems perspective.

show abstract

From anger to action: Differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing

Cited by 297 publications

References 23 publications

Anxiety and Climate Change: A Validation of the Climate Anxiety Scale in a German-Speaking Quota Sample and an Investigation of Psychological Correlates

Anxiety and Climate Change: A Validation of the Climate Anxiety Scale in a German-Speaking Quota Sample and an Investigation of Psychological Correlates

Investigating similarities and differences in individual reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis

When conflicts get heated, so does the planet: coupled social-climate dynamics under inequality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About