Reality, causes, consequences: the role of climate change perceptions in climate adaptation

The climate on Earth is changing. Extreme weather events will occur more frequently and become more severe. Individuals and households need to engage in a wide repertoire of actions to adapt to these risks, ranging from supporting adaptation policies, to seeking information about climate-related risks, to implementing preparative measures in and around the home. In this dissertation, we examine whether people’s perceptions of the reality, causes, and consequences of climate change are general antecedents of these different adaptation actions. Across four chapters, we find that climate change perceptions can encourage different adaptation action, particularly information seeking and policy support.Yet, climate change perceptions are not a silver bullet to promoting any type of adaptation action. It is also important that people perceive risks from specific climate-related hazards, that they perceive themselves as capable of implementing adaptation behaviours, and that they perceive adaptation behaviours as effective. Policies that consider both climate change perceptions as well as more hazard- and behaviour-specific variables such as risk perception and efficacy beliefs are therefore critical in promoting widespread adaptation

Climate anxiety is not a mental health problem. But we should still treat it as one

Climate anxiety refers to pervasive worry and apprehension about climate change. Scholars have stressed that climate anxiety is a normal and healthy response to climate change that can motivate climate action and should therefore not be medicalized. This article considers the inadvertent consequences associated with not treating climate anxiety as a mental health problem.</p

Climate Anxiety:A Research Agenda Inspired by Emotion Research

Climate anxiety refers to persistent, difficult-to-control apprehensiveness and worry about climate change. Research to better understand the prevalence, indicators, causes, and consequences of climate anxiety is needed, to which emotion researchers can make substantial contributions. First, emotion theory can inform an integrative and functional theory of climate anxiety, mapping interactions between its cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and physiological indicators. Second, appraisal theories can help to understand the reasons why people experience climate anxiety. Third, emotion researchers can contribute to theorizing when climate anxiety motivates climate action, accounting for non-linearity, interactions with other emotions and cognitions, and temporal dynamics. Fourth, emotion researchers can contribute to developing strategies to cope with climate anxiety, for example, by building on emotion regulation theory.</p

Social identification and depression:A meta-analysis

A meta‐analysis of 76 studies (N = 31,016) examined the relationship between social identification and depression. Overall, individuals who identify highly with a group tend to report less depression (average rz = −.15). However, a large amount of variability between studies was observed. The 95% prediction interval, which indicates the true effect size that can be expected in future research, ranged from rz = −.50 to .19. The relationship between depression and social identification is more complex than previously assumed. Some variability is related to the social identification measure used. Studies that focused on identification with interactive groups (rz = −.28) had larger effect sizes than studies that focused on social categories (rz = −.11). Moreover, studies of non‐stigmatized groups (rz = −.24) had larger effect sizes than studies of stigmatized groups (rz = −.10). In conclusion, the structure and social identity content of groups appear to play an important role in the relationship between depression and social identification