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Psychological and Emotional Responses to Climate Change among Young People Worldwide: Differences Associated with Gender, Age, and Country [1]
['Clayton', 'Susan D.', 'Pihkala', 'Wray', 'Marks', 'Susan D. Clayton', 'Panu Pihkala', 'Britt Wray', 'Elizabeth Marks']
Date: 2023-01-21
1. Introduction
Emotions related to climate change are a fast-growing topic of research. They are important to examine in part because they suggest the level of concern that people are experiencing and how personally important they find the issue of climate change to be; this may predict support for policies designed to mitigate climate change and for behavioral adaptation measures. They may also be associated with mental health. As concern about climate change appears to be growing [ 1 2 ], describing demographic patterns in the emotional and attitudinal responses can help to understand the potential for adverse psychological impacts.
5,8,9, Climate anxiety, a constellation of emotions associated with awareness that climate change is occurring, has been observed around the world [ 3 ]. Recognizing that anxiety may serve an adaptive function by helping people to orient toward and respond to potential threats, climate anxiety should be considered to exist along a continuum, with only the higher levels of anxiety having the potential to affect mental health [ 4 6 ]. Although it is not itself a mental illness, climate anxiety is a stressor that increases the mental health burden and as such may lead to decreased mental health, particularly among those who are vulnerable, who have less intra- or inter-personal resilience or agency, and who are experiencing other stressors. In several studies, a measure of climate anxiety has been found to be associated with self-assessed mental health threats as well as higher scores on established measures of anxiety and depression [ 7 10 ]. For example, initial studies validating the Climate Change Anxiety Scale [ 8 ] found that it was associated with an established measure of anxiety and depression; another study [ 9 ] found that climate anxiety was negatively associated with mental well-being in 31 out of 32 countries. A systematic review of published research [ 7 ] found that eco-anxiety was associated with depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, PTSD, and lower self-rated mental health. Climate anxiety should be recognized as one of the ways in which climate change is having a detrimental impact on mental well-being.
Gender is associated with vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Women are considered to be at higher risk, due in part to factors related to gender roles and unequal access to power, information, and financial resources [ 11 12 ]. At a global and historical level, explicit and implicit bias as well as patriarchal cultural norms have meant that women and girls have often endured social vulnerability, exclusion from participation in the halls of power, and other inequities while being denied their agency and voice. The harmful impacts of climate change on women may be more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries, as poorer countries have fewer resources with which to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
13,14,15,16,17, Gender may also be associated with increased vulnerability to climate anxiety. A growing body of research demonstrates gender differences in environmental concern and concern about climate change [ 7 18 ], although this is not always the case [ 19 ]. For example, a systematic review of 12 studies using a variety of measures and covering multiple countries [ 7 ] found that women showed higher levels of concern in 11 of them; an analysis of more than 44,000 respondents from the European Social Survey [ 15 ] also found that women showed greater concern. Men also score higher on climate denial [ 20 ]. In a national survey of Finnish youth, women reported more climate emotions than men, although even young men reported high recognition of ecological sadness [ 21 ]. Higher levels of climate anxiety among women than men were found in a large sample of European and African Francophones [ 22 ]. The gendered characteristics of climate anxiety may relate to perceived differences in impacts as well as to broader patterns where the prevalence of anxiety and mood disorders is higher in women compared to men [ 23 ], a gender gap that is present in childhood and adolescence and present cross-culturally [ 24 ].
8,13,16,19, Age is also relevant to considerations of vulnerability. Factors shaping young people’s climate anxiety have received growing research attention [ 25 ]. Climate change is a particular concern among young people, whose lives extend further into the future and who thus are likely to experience more of the threats associated with climate change compared with older adults [ 26 ]. In previous research, younger adults have been found to be more worried about climate change than older adults [ 7 22 ]. This was found in a systematic review of research [ 7 ] as well as an analysis of the European Social Survey [ 15 ]. This may represent a cohort effect as almost 50% of the world’s children are predicted to be at ‘extremely high risk’ of climate impacts [ 27 ], coupled with the fact that recent developments mean that young people will have been aware of climate change for a large proportion of (possibly for the entirety) their lives. Young people are facing a high level of vulnerability to the impacts of climate change as well as an onslaught of media coverage describing the threat [ 28 ]. Younger generations also have less power to effect change (e.g., through voting, finance, etc.), and, related to this, they may be particularly sensitive to feelings of betrayal by those in power [ 29 30 ].
The complex and forceful changes related to climate awareness, and to impacts on children and youth, have been evident in recent years. Climate awareness in children has grown alongside movements such as Fridays4Future, famous young activists such as Greta Thunberg, and media attention. These cultural shifts are necessary, but it is unclear whether such developments may have increased the concern and worry among younger people (aged 16–25) and how it may be affecting their plans for the future. It is often reported, for example, that some young adults are reluctant to have children due to their concerns about climate change [ 28 ]. It is also not clear whether there are differences between the younger and older members of this age bracket [ 31 ]; there is some evidence that older adolescents are more worried than younger ones [ 32 ]. However, most of the research that has examined age differences has relied on adults [ 7 13 ], or has not compared the youngest respondents to those who were slightly older, only reporting overall associations with age [ 15 ]. A social-ecological perspective [ 25 ] discusses micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-level factors for climate anxiety. Whereas differences among adults are more likely due to different priorities or values, children and young people are affected more by individual differences including the stage of cognitive development, degree of exposure to climate information, the influence of family, peers, and media discussions, the (in)actions of governments, and complex cultural factors. Thus, it is important to further examine climate anxiety and other emotional responses among younger people, as well as how age relates to social interactions and perceptions of government.
Like the impacts of climate change, emotional and attitudinal responses to climate change vary across countries, for reasons partly related to exposure and partly to GDP but also to more abstract variables such as trust in others [ 13 33 ]. Risk perceptions may explain why climate change is generally perceived as a bigger threat in the developing world [ 17 ]. Risk can be associated with experience of the direct impacts of climate change; previous research has shown that there is a link between personal experience of climate change and risk perception, but that this also depends on socially-driven interpretations of that risk [ 17 ]. Several studies have shown that personal experience of climate change is associated with greater climate anxiety [ 8 22 ]. However, the relationship is complex. A high degree of inter-country variability was found in climate anxiety and other responses to climate change across 32 countries [ 9 ]. Exposure to flooding did not predict anxiety, but exposure to media information about climate anxiety did, as did a perception that other people were worried about climate change.
Risk perception is affected by demographic, cultural, and cognitive factors, but also includes an affective component [ 17 ]. While perceptions of risk and concern have been widely studied, emotional responses to climate change have only recently received substantial attention. Many different emotions can be related to risk perceptions and the various ways that people cope with them [ 5 ]. These emotions and coping methods are also shaped by social and cultural factors, such as emotional norms. For example, different cultures have different norms about which emotions are deemed suitable for persons in given situations [ 34 ]. Other cultural factors and individual differences relevant to eco-anxiety include one’s connection with the natural world and ‘environmental identity’ [ 8 19 ]. This could interact with risk perception; for example, the strong cultural connection to the land in indigenous groups may affect the significance of climate-related changes, and such groups may also be living in areas where the risk is greater due to a greater geographic vulnerability [ 3 ].
Risk perceptions and the associated anxiety are also affected by perceptions of social interactions. Some young people have reported feeling unsupported when they express concern about climate change; some report frustration or anger about the responses of others, including governments [ 30 33 ]. However, to our knowledge, there has been no examination of how these social perceptions and experiences vary by gender or age.
In this paper, we utilize an existing dataset based on a survey of 10,000 young people around the world to investigate demographic differences in responses. An earlier paper reporting on the results of this survey [ 29 ] showed that a majority (59%) of young people surveyed were very or extremely worried; that 45% described their worries as affecting their daily functioning; that they were very pessimistic about the future; and that they evaluated governmental response to climate change very negatively. Almost 40% of respondents reported feeling dismissed by others when they tried to talk about climate change. Only 31% said that governments can be trusted to respond effectively to climate change. There were significant country differences in all of these responses, but these were not discussed at length in the earlier paper.
This large, international dataset provides a unique opportunity to explore responses to climate change, and associated gender differences, in a younger sample than most previous research has used. We were guided by three research questions:
RQ1: What are the differences in each variable associated with gender?
Based on previous research, we expected to find that women were more concerned and expressed more negative emotions than men. We did not have specific hypotheses about social perceptions and experiences associated with gender.
RQ2: What are the differences in each variable associated with age?
Previous research has mostly identified emotional responses as being stronger in younger respondents. However, there is little research investigating responses in youth younger than 18, so we did not have a directional hypothesis for the effects of age.
RQ3: What are the differences associated with the respondents’ country?
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