Symposium S-053
Symposium organizer:
Vasiliki Christodoulou (School of Sciences, UCLan Cyprus)
Conference topic:
Environmental Psychology and Social Issues – People-environment relations under pandemics and crises.
Session leader / Chair:
Dr. Sinead Sheehan (School of Psychology, Galway, Ireland)
Symposium Abstract
Contemporary generations are deeply affected by the climate crisis. Although expected to experience climate change impacts, they are also poised to drive climate action. This symposium presents five studies focusing on factors that affect well-being and engagement with climate change, such as emotions, values, and environmental and social contexts. The first paper focused on a representative sample of the Norwegian public (N ≈ 2000) and used a survey to textually analyze the relationship between climate emotions and underlying appraisals. The second presentation explored how value-priming combined with an educational video affected student engagement with climate change. Findings suggested that priming pro-environmental values can promote responsibility for climate action in young participants. The third presentation examined the perceptions of school climate and its relationship with mental health in students from different schools in Latvia (N = 1000). It highlighted how educational environments shape students’ well-being amid growing global threats. The fourth presentation explored the link between eco-anxiety and environmentally friendly consumption in a convenience sample of Lithuanian young adults. The study predicted the mediating roles of coping, perceived control, knowledge, and hope in explaining the anxiety-behaviour linkage. Finally, the fifth presentation adopted a longitudinal approach to analyze adolescents’ (2020–2022, N = 3716) climate distress profiles and their associations with caregivers’ distress and efficacy, revealing patterns of distress and the role of caregivers in fostering constructive responses. Together, these studies offered insights into how cohorts of mostly young people experience and respond to the climate change emergency, highlighting pathways to climate action.
Symposium Contributions
Understanding Discrete Climate Emotions: An Appraisal-Theoretical Analysis
Author:
Dr. Gisela Böhm (Presenting Author)
Affiliations:
Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Department of Psychology, University of Inland Norway, Lillehammer, Norway
Co-authors:
Dr. Thea Gregersen
Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), Bergen, Norway
Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Discrete emotions, such as fear or anger, have been found to predict judgments and behaviors towards climate change. These emotions are typically measured by asking respondents to indicate to which extent they experience them. However, there is increasing dissatisfaction with this kind of measurement. The argument is that knowledge regarding the intensity of an emotion does not suffice to understand people’s experience; we also need to know its target. For example, Geiger, Dwyer, & Swim (2023) showed that hope based on the possibility of taking action against climate change was associated with climate engagement whereas hope based on climate change not being a problem was not. Starting from an appraisal-theoretical approach, we aim to analyze the underlying appraisals of six discrete climate emotions: hope, fear, sadness, anger, guilt, and powerlessness, using an online survey. A representative sample of the Norwegian public (N ≈ 2000) will be asked, on a rating scale, to indicate how intensely they experience each emotion. Then, respondents are urged to explain what was going through their minds when responding to one randomly selected emotion (n ≈ 330 for each emotion). Fieldwork is currently ongoing (November-December 2024). We will manually screen the responses for emotion-specific appraisals based on theory (e.g., anticipation of future threats for fear, injustice for anger), and apply automated text analysis, such as topic modeling and AI tools, to identify potential new ones. Our results will give a much-nuanced picture of the relationship between appraisals and climate emotions.
School Climate and Adolescent Mental Health: The Role of Educational Institutions in Promoting Young People’s Well-Being and Resilience
Author:
Prof. Baiba Martinsone (Presenting Author)
Affiliation:
University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
Nowadays, school climate is increasingly recognized as one of the key variables for monitoring school quality and promoting well-being in educational settings. Using a cross-culturally validated self-report measure—the Georgia School Climate Survey (GSCS)—allows us to assess the school climate from the perspectives of students, educators, and families.
This presentation will focus on adolescents’ perceptions of the school climate and their self-reported mental health because improving the school environment enhances student outcomes. However, research expanding the view from school to the global environment in relation to students’ anxiety, stress and depression has been limited.
Such aspects of the school environment, as perceived physical and emotional safety, quality of relationships between peers and adults, teaching and learning (including teacher expectations, a stimulating environment, and teaching and learning materials) will be considered in relation to adolescents’ reported stress, anxiety, depression, and other symptoms. The research will address gender and age/grade differences in the school climate and mental health.
The sample comprised more than 1000 students of 5-12 grades from schools in different regions of Latvia. The initial results from this quantitative research will be discussed in the wider context of young people’s mental health in the situation of multiple global threats and uncertainty. Based on the research findings, implications for schools as key actors impacting students’ mental health and well-being will be offered.
Explaining the Interrelationships that Link Eco-Anxiety and Environmentally Friendly Consumption in Young Adults: The Role of Coping, Perceived Control, Knowledge, and Hope
Author:
Dovilė Šorytė (Presenting Author)
Affiliation:
Environmental Psychology Research Centre, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Co-authors:
Dr. Audra Balundė
Dr. Aistė Bakaitytė-Bagdonė
Dr. Rita Žukauskienė
Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania
Eco-anxiety may pose a risk to people’s mental health. It is especially important to consider the younger generations, who are more prone to experiencing the maladaptive effects of ecological distress. On the other hand, eco-anxiety can manifest as a source of motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviour (PEB). It is not clear whether this connection between eco-anxiety and PEB varies as a function of other factors. The presentation aims to shed more light on the mechanism that links eco-anxiety and environmentally friendly consumption in a sample of young adults by testing the role of coping, perceived behavioural control, knowledge about how to act pro-environmentally, and hope as explanatory factors.
A convenience sample of expectedly 600 participants will be collected for the correlational study comprising Lithuanian adults aged 18-35. Items from the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (Clayton & Karazsia, 2020), the Coping Strategies instrument (Ojala, 2012; Ojala & Bengtsson, 2019), and the Hope-index (Sangervo et al., 2022) will be used, together with the questions about environmentally friendly consumption, perceived control, and knowledge, developed specifically for the study. Structural equation modelling will be applied to data analysis. Based on the assumptions from previous studies and the relevant theoretical perspectives (e.g. the transactional theory of stress and coping), we predict the unique mediating roles and the interaction of coping, perceived control, knowledge, and hope in explaining the anxiety-behaviour linkage. Insights about the mechanisms underlying the association between eco-anxiety and PEB are critical for developing effective interventions that promote adaptive responses to environmental crises.
Climate Change Distress Profiles in Adolescence, Pro-Environmental Behaviour and the Role of Caregivers: A Three-Year, Two-Cohort Longitudinal Study
Author:
PhD student Salla Veijonaho (Presenting Author)
Affiliation:
Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Co-author:
Dr. K. Salmela-Aro
Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Although distress caused by climate change awareness is widespread among adolescents globally, adolescents respond to climate change in different ways, and these responses may change over time. In addition, previous studies have found that while parental norms directly influence adolescents’ pro-environmental behavior, environmentally aware adolescents can also promote sustainable lifestyles at home. However, the relationship between adolescents’ and caregivers’ climate change distress and how those relate to behavioral habits remains understudied. This study employs a person-oriented approach to examine climate change distress in adolescence across three annual data waves (2020–2022, N = 3716) from two age cohorts (born in 2006 and 2008), complemented by caregiver data from 2023 (N = 515). Associations between profile memberships, pro-environmental behavior, caregivers’ climate change distress and efficacy are also examined. Four climate change distress profiles were identified: stable-low (57%), stable-moderate (28%), increasing-high (7%), and decreasing-high (4%). Adolescents in the increasing-high climate change distress group exhibited the highest pro-environmental behavior, while those in the stable-low group showed the least pro-environmental behavior. Caregivers of adolescents in the declining-high group reported the highest climate change distress, whereas caregivers of the stable-low group reported the lowest. Caregivers of the stable-moderate group reported the highest climate change efficacy, while caregivers of the increasing-high group reported the lowest efficacy. In conclusion, the results provide new insights into the patterns of climate change distress of adolescents and the role of caregivers in addressing this distress and fostering constructive responses among adolescents.
