Climate Change: Greater Anxiety Related to Greater Action
Noa Gonzalez, Luke P. Reyes, Jin Qian, Betty Castaneda, and Kimberly A. Barchard
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
INTRODUCTION
- The negative effects of climate change are becoming so extreme that the United Nations have recommended changing the status of Climate Change to Climate Crisis (McGrath, 2021; Ripple et al., 2020)
- The Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS; Clayton & Karazsia, 2020), see Figure 1, measures negative emotions and symptoms that individuals feel due to climate change.
METHOD
- Data was collected from 500 Mturk workers via Amazon.
- The mean age breakdown of participants: Our youngest participant was 19 years of age, and our oldest participant was 76 years of age, M = 39.68, SD = 11.69.
- The gender breakdown of our participants is as follows: 285 participants reported as male, 212 participants reported as female, and 3 participants reported as non-binary.
- Participants completed a single 10-minute testing session, unsupervised. Each participant was awarded $3 upon completion.
- The ethnic breakdown of participants: 415 (83%) White/Caucasian, 43 (8.6%) African American/ Black, 25 (5%) Asian, 4 (0.8%) Native American (North, Central, or South), 1 (0.2%) Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and 12 (2.4%) identified as Other
- A Pearson correlation was used to study the link between climate change anxiety and climate action
RESULTS
- Among Mturk workers, climate change anxiety showed a strong positive related to climate change action (r(498) = .63, p < .001, 95% confidence interval [.58, .68]). See Figure 2 for the relationship between climate change anxiety and climate change action.
DISCUSSION
- The people with the highest level of anxiety were generally quite active in trying to reduce climate change. Conversely, the people with the highest levels of action varied in their levels of anxiety.
- Taking action to reduce climate change could be effective in reducing anxiety, both because one can see that one’s actions are effective and because one is associating with other people who are actively fighting climate change, making one feel that, by all working together, we can address this issue.
- Limitations
- Geographic homogeneity could be of potential concern, due to potential cultural differences in how climate change is perceived.
- Study only examined proactive attempts to reduce climate change
- Future research could examine more palliative variables for anxiety and climate change action.
Climate Change:
Greater Anxiety Related to Greater Action
Please rate how often the following statements are true of you. |
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- Thinking about climate change makes it difficult for me to concentrate
- Thinking about climate change makes it difficult for me to sleep
- I have nightmares about climate change
- I find myself crying because of climate change
- I think, "why can't I handle climate change better?"
- I go away by myself and think about why I feel this way about climate change
- I write down my thoughts about climate change and analyze them
- I think, "why do I react to climate change this way?"
- My concerns about climate change make it hard for me to have fun with my family or friends
- I have problems balancing my concerns about sustainability with the needs of my family
- My concerns about climate change interfere with my ability to get work or school assignments done.
- My concerns about climate change undermine my ability to work to my potential
- My friends say I think about climate change too much
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Climate Change Anxiety Scale (Clayton & Karazsia, 2020)