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2nd Edition: The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change
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2nd Edition: The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2025 | Viewed by 7029

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Alan E. Stewart

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Guest Editor
1. Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30677, USA
2. Department of Geography – Atmospheric Science Program, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30677, USA
Interests: psychology of weather and climate; weather salience; weather-related risk-taking; weather perception; weather-as-events; global climate change; weather and emotional processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Severe or extreme weather events that can be attributed to global climate change are increasingly prevalent. Similarly, the cumulative effects of altered temperature and precipitation regimes can create personal, social, or economic impacts that develop and evolve over time. What are the psychological impacts of such single and multiple events as a result of climate change? Here, psychological impacts encompass not only changes in the emotional responses of individuals, but changes in perceptual processes, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors in response to experienced or anticipated climate change. Is climate change inducing new psychological phenomena and experiences and/or exacerbating existing psychological challenges? This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health invites the submission of quantitative or qualitative empirical research that addresses this question and in so doing reveals something novel about peoples’ psychological relationships with weather or climate. Although research regarding global climate change is integrative and multidisciplinary, submissions to this Special Issue should be primarily psychological in nature and possess implications for mental and/or physical health. Individual people or families should be the units of analysis used in submitted research. Some illustrative topics for this Special Issue are:

  • How do personality traits and psychological coping mechanisms combine with the experience of climate change to produce psychological responses to climate change impacts?
  • Is climate change inducing new psychological phenomena and experiences and/or exacerbating existing psychological challenges?
  • Studies of individual traits or characteristics that can make the experiences of climate change more challenging or difficult.
  • Changes in perception, thinking, or reasoning about climate change following the experience of a severe or extreme weather event.
  • Studies of individual traits or characteristics that may be helpful in adjusting to the impacts of climate change.

Prof. Dr. Alan E. Stewart
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • adaptation
  • affect/emotion
  • cognition
  • climate change
  • individual differences
  • meaning making
  • personality traits
  • climate change anxiety
  • climate change worry

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 690 KiB  
Article
Alternative Food Practices as Pathways to Cope with Climate Distress
by Laurence Ammann-Lanthier, Katie Hayes and Iain J. Davidson-Hunt
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(4), 488; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21040488 - 16 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1123
Abstract
Experiences of distress and challenging emotions in response to the climate crisis are increasingly common, particularly among young adults. These experiences can include challenging emotions caused by the harmful environmental impacts of conventional food systems, as their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions have [...] Read more.
Experiences of distress and challenging emotions in response to the climate crisis are increasingly common, particularly among young adults. These experiences can include challenging emotions caused by the harmful environmental impacts of conventional food systems, as their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions have become more widely known. While recent studies have examined various experiences of climate distress, the interaction between climate distress and food practice remains poorly understood. In this research, we turn to this intersection by examining the experiences of climate distress of young adults who have alternative food practices, and the interaction between their climate distress and their alternative food practices. Guided by an exploratory, single case study research approach, this research draws from 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with young adults located in urban centres in the Southeastern Prairie Region of Canada. Thematic analysis of the findings reveals that participants experience a variety of climate emotions and a personal responsibility to act in response to the climate crisis. The findings suggest that because of their ability to facilitate a meaningful and practical environmental impact, alternative food practices represent significant climate actions and may be pathways to facilitate coping or managing climate distress among young adults. Results demonstrate the psychological impacts of the climate crisis on young adults, highlighting the need for action on climate change and climate distress. Increasing the accessibility of alternative food practices may support young adults in coping with challenging climate emotions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2nd Edition: The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change)
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16 pages, 5342 KiB  
Article
Influences of Indoor Air Temperatures on Empathy and Positive Affect
by Rania Christoforou, Hannah Pallubinsky, Tobias Maria Burgholz, Mahmoud El-Mokadem, Janine Bardey, Kai Rewitz, Dirk Müller and Marcel Schweiker
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(3), 323; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21030323 - 10 Mar 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1928
Abstract
The consequences of climate change are already visible, and yet, its effect on psychosocial factors, including the expression of empathy, affect, and social disconnection, is widely unknown. Outdoor conditions are expected to influence indoor conditions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to [...] Read more.
The consequences of climate change are already visible, and yet, its effect on psychosocial factors, including the expression of empathy, affect, and social disconnection, is widely unknown. Outdoor conditions are expected to influence indoor conditions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of indoor air temperature during work hours on empathy, positive and negative affect, and social disconnection. Participants (N = 31) were exposed, in a cross-over design, to two thermal conditions in a simulated office environment. Questions on empathy and social disconnection were administered before and after the exposure to each condition, while affect was measured throughout the day. Subjective thermal sensation and objective measures of mean skin temperature were considered. The results indicated a significant difference in empathy (F(1, 24) = 5.37, p = 0.03, with an η2 = 0.126) between conditions. Participants reported increases in empathy after exposure to the warm condition compared to the cool condition, in which reductions in empathy were reported. Although the same pattern was observed for positive affect, the difference was smaller and the results were not significant. Thermal sensation had a significant effect on changes in empathy too (F(1, 54) = 7.015, p = 0.01, with an R2 = 0.115), while mean skin temperature had no effect on empathy (F(1, 6) = 0.53, p = 0.89, with an R2 = 0.81). No effects were observed for positive and negative affect and social disconnection. Longitudinal studies are needed to support these findings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2nd Edition: The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change)
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24 pages, 786 KiB  
Article
Anxiety and Worry about Six Categories of Climate Change Impacts
by Alan E. Stewart, Harrison E. Chapman and Jackson B. L. Davis
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2024, 21(1), 23; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21010023 - 23 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3388
Abstract
The occurrence of severe and extreme weather events that have been attributed to a changed climate system and the widespread dissemination of the impacts of these events in the media can lead people to experience concern, worry, and anxiety, which we examined in [...] Read more.
The occurrence of severe and extreme weather events that have been attributed to a changed climate system and the widespread dissemination of the impacts of these events in the media can lead people to experience concern, worry, and anxiety, which we examined in two studies. In Study 1, we observed that people more frequently expressed worry than anxiety about the impacts of climate change in six areas. People were more frequently worried and anxious about the effects of climate change on future generations and about societal responses (or lack of a response) to climate change. The levels of anxiety that people expressed were significantly higher than the worry people reported when anxiety was their modal response. In Study 2, we observed that both climate change worry and anxiety were negatively correlated with psychological distance from climate change. Overall, climate change worry and psychological distance significantly predicted climate-sustainable behaviors. Our study was among the first to use developed measures of climate change worry, anxiety, and psychological distance to examine peoples’ responses across some of the possible impact and consequence areas of climate change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 2nd Edition: The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change)
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