Study on Eco-Emotions, Coping and Ecological Behaviours
07.08.2024
This paper was co-authored by certificate student Lisa Poettinger as part of her main course of study (Zulassungsarbeit Lehramt, Schulpsychology). This paper may be of interest to certificate students because it discusses environmental psychology as a discipline from an environmental humanities perspective and investigates the association between eco-emotions (eco-anxiety, eco-depression, eco-anger, eco-hope), different coping styles and individual as well as collective environmental behaviours.
The exploratory online survey suggests that eco-anxiety, eco-anger, and problem-focused coping (confronting a problem) are positively linked with pro-environmental behaviours whereas meaning-focused coping (imbueing desperate circumstances with existential meaning) is negatively linked with them. Surprisingly, hope did not show any effects one way or another.
One may derive from those findings that climate communication should induce anger and anxiety with a focus on solutions rather than abstract hope. Further, environmental psychological research merits more interdisciplinary approaches grounded in the environmental humanities, as well as an investigation of social context factors.
Downloads
- Eco-emotions-coping-eco-behaviour2023 (2 MByte)