Emotions and distress in response to the climate crisis

Abstract

The mental health impacts of the climate crisis have recently gained recognition and attention. Eco-distress has been identified as a growing phenomenon and is defined as the distress caused by awareness of the climate crisis and its consequences. How eco-distress relates to mental health outcomes is unclear. There are arguments that eco-distress is functional and constructive, whereas others have argued the potential for detrimental outcomes.This thesis contributes to our understanding about eco-distress and the potential constructive or unconstructive outcomes. The first chapter situates the research projects in relation to what is currently known and unknown about the relationship between the climate crisis and mental health outcomes.The second chapter is a systematic review of the research to date, exploring what factors contribute to the development of eco-distress and its predictors. Predictors of eco-distress are multifaceted, including cognitive and environmental factors. Exposure to media, other forms of distress and connectedness to nature had the most evidence as potential predictors of eco-distress. However, the evidence base suffered from significant methodological inadequacies.The final chapter then empirically explores what factors contribute to constructive outcomes of eco-distress (pro-environmental behaviours). The findings suggest that emotional responses differentially contribute to constructive outcomes in that eco-anger was associated with greater pro-environmental behaviours. Further, problem-focused coping mediated this relationship highlighting that how eco-distress is coped with influences the outcomes