Climate anxiety, pro-environmental action and wellbeing: antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change in 28 countries

Ogunbode, Charles Adedayo; Lomas, Michael; Doran, Rouven; Hanss, Daniel; Ojala, Maria; Salmela-Aro, Katariina; van den Broek, Karlijn L.; Bhullar, Navjot; Aquino, Sibele D.; Marot, Tiago; Schermer, Julie Aitken; Wlodarczyk, Anna; Lu, Su; Jiang, Feng; Maran, Daniela Acquadro; Yadav, Radha; Ardi, Rakhman; Chegeni, Razieh; Ghanbarian, Elahe; Zand, Somayeh; Najafi, Reza; Park, Joonha; Tsubakita, Takashi; Tan, Chee-Seng; Chukwuorji, JohnBosco Chika; Ojewumi, Kehinde; Tahir, Hajra; Albzour, Mai; Reyes, Marc Eric S.; Lins, Samuel; Enea, Violeta; Volkodav, Tatiana; Sollar, Tomas; Navarro-Carrillo, Ginés; Torres-Marín, Jorge; Mbungu, Winfred; Ayanian, Arin H.; Ghorayeb, Jihane; Onyutha, Charles

Abstract

This study explored the antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change among people from a diverse range of cultural and national contexts. We analysed cross-sectional data gathered in 28 countries (N = 10,963). Our results show that negative emotional responses to climate change are positively related to the amount of attention people pay to climate change information, rates of exposure to information about climate change impacts, and perceived social expectations regarding emotional responding to climate change. Negative climate-related emotions were also positively related to pro-environmental behaviours and inversely associated with mental wellbeing. Notably, while negative climate-related emotions had a significant inverse association with mental wellbeing in all 28 countries, they only had a significant positive association with pro-environmental behaviour (46%) and environmental activism (25%) in a minority of countries. Our findings highlight the broad international significance of negative climate-related emotions as a plausible threat to mental wellbeing.

Citation

Ogunbode, C. A., Lomas, M., Doran, R., Hanss, D., Ojala, M., Salmela-Aro, K., …Onyutha, C. Climate anxiety, pro-environmental action and wellbeing: antecedents and outcomes of negative emotional responses to climate change in 28 countries

• Working Paper Type: Working Paper
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 17, 2024
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/yn6tc