Psychological aspects of climate change risk perception: A content analysis in Iranian context

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Risk perception is an important predictor to mitigate climate change effects which can produce mental health consequences such as anxiety and depression. For developing policies of climate risk adaptation, awareness of public attitudes, beliefs, and perception is essential. At this study, researchers tried to focus on the often “unseen” psychological aspects of climate change. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A qualitative approach was done with a consistent content analysis method. The study consisted of 33 participants including ordinary people and experts in disasters and climate change. Purposeful sampling was adopted until data saturation. The data collection was performed through in-depth and semi-structured interviews. All interviews were transcribed after listening again and again and reading several times to catch an overall understanding of the interviews. RESULTS: The main theme of the study was “Complexity nature of climate change risk perception” and related categories including “the Mental health dimension,” “the Cognitive dimension” and “Interaction of imposed components.” The structure of the research community strongly reflected effects of cultural and religious factors in all aspects of community life. Participants’ life experiences of extreme events were associated to their perception of climate change. CONCLUSIONS: Risk perception is multifactorial and complicate and should clearly be understood to improve community participation to manage climate change-related risks. We propose that authorities and related managers should pay attention to it as a priority. This may assist in developing research on public mental health practices.

Climate Change and Mental Health: A Scoping Review

“…In addition to the tangible mental health impacts related to exposure to specific climate change-related events, studies have reported psychological impacts of perceived risks associated with climate change [ 44 , 45 ].…”

A conceptual model for adaptation to climate variability in rangelands

“…The adaptation strategies against climate variabilities are a set of measures that are consciously used by people at the production and income unit level of rural households to mitigate the negative effects of climate change or even prevent its impacts. More specifically, investigating the awareness is assumed as a start point to make effective adaptation (Fosu-Mensah et al, 2012;Gandure et al, 2013;Yaro, 2013;Le Dang et al, 2014;Farrokhi et al, 2020;Mahmood et al, 2021). Since climate change management also needs some information about perceived risks (Gandure et al, 2013;Azadi et al, 2019a;Mahmood et al, 2021) and potential and inaction adaptation strategies (Smit and Wandel, 2006;Gandure et al, 2013;Dumenu and Obeng, 2016;Azadi et al, 2019a;Esfandiari et al, 2020;Mahmood et al, 2021) to attract required financial supports.…”

“…Studies addressing the issues of climate change awareness, perceptions, and adaptation in Iran (Zarafshani et al, 2005;Fatemi and Karami, 2010;Hayati et al, 2010;Keshavarz et al, 2013;e.g., Azizi Khalakhili and Zamani, 2014;Zobeidi et al, 2016;Azadi et al, 2019a,b;Jamshidi et al, 2019;Esfandiari et al, 2020;Farrokhi et al, 2020;Delfiyan et al, 2021;Ghazali et al, 2021) are basically focused on farmer groups. Therefore, exploiters of medicinal plants have not been studied so far.…”

Local Community Members’ Perceptions of Rainfall Scarcity and Its Impacts on Water and Food Resources: A Case Study of Moletjie Community in Limpopo Province, South Africa

“…This corroborates with Salehi et al (2016) that the global climate change knowledge showed that perception of climate change is sensible, and its awareness is influenced by societal and environmental factors. Farrokhi et al (2020) concurs that climate change perception is influenced by factors such as personal experiences, memories of climate events, and various biases. However, the most notable changes in climatic conditions understood by the local communities are in the form of erratic rainfall patterns resulting in drought, depleting water resources and while some areas are flooded.…”