Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:19:17.778Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 14 - Coping with Climate Change among Young People

Meaning-Focused Coping and Constructive Hope

from Part II - Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Youth Climate Distress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2024

Elizabeth Haase
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Reno
Kelsey Hudson
Affiliation:
Climate Psychology Alliance North America
Get access

Summary

Based on earlier empirical research, the main aim of this chapter is to argue for the importance of promoting meaning-focused coping and constructive hope in relation to climate change among young people. We start by describing the role of meaning and positive emotions like hope in the coping process and how meaning-focused coping and constructive hope are interrelated. Thereafter, we describe several aspects of meaning-focused coping in relation to the climate threat and show that this way of coping is associated with both mental well-being and climate change engagement. We also review some studies that demonstrate how collective climate engagement can give hope and meaning to young activists. The chapter also aims to discuss the practical implications of these studies, both for different groups of adults who want to communicate with youth about climate change in a constructive way (like parents and teachers) and for young people themselves. We finish the chapter by emphasizing the need for promoting critical emotional awareness where it is acknowledged that emotions and coping are not solely individual experiences but are also influenced by cultural emotion norms, gender norms, and power. The age groups in focus are adolescents and emerging adults.

Type
Chapter
Information
Climate Change and Youth Mental Health
Multidisciplinary Perspectives
, pp. 269 - 286
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amsler, S. (2011). From “therapeutic” to political education: The centrality of affective sensibility in critical pedagogy. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 4763. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2011.536512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballard, P. J., & Ozer, E. J. (2016). The implications of youth activism for health and well-being. In Connor, J. & Rosen, S. M. (Eds.), Contemporary Youth Activism: Advancing Social Justice in the United States (pp. 223243). ABC-CLIO.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballard, P. J., & Syme, S. L. (2016). Engaging youth in communities: A framework for promoting adolescent and community health. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 70(2), 202206.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bessaha, M., Hayward, R. A., & Gatanas, K. (2022). A scoping review of youth and young adults’ roles in natural disaster mitigation and response: considerations for youth wellbeing during a global ecological crisis. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 27(1), 1421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boehnke, K., & Wong, B. (2011). Adolescent political activism and long-term happiness: A 21-year longitudinal study on the development of micro-and macrosocial worries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(3), 435447.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, X. (2021). Psychological challenges and coping strategies for youth climate activists. Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Christens, B. D., Byrd, K., Peterson, N. A., & Lardier Jr, D. T. (2018). Critical hopefulness among urban high school students. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47, 16491662.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christens, B. D., & Dolan, T. (2011). Interweaving youth development, community development, and social change through youth organizing. Youth & Society, 43(2), 528548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christens, B. D., & Peterson, N. A. (2012). The role of empowerment in youth development: A study of sociopolitical control as mediator of ecological systems’ influence on developmental outcomes. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(5), 623635.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christens, B. D., Peterson, N. A., Reid, R. J., & Garcia-Reid, P. (2015). Adolescents’ perceived control in the sociopolitical domain: A latent class analysis. Youth & Society, 47(4), 443461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, A. T. (2006). Coping with interpersonal stress and psychosocial health among children and adolescents: A meta analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35(1), 1124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, M., Wood, W.-J., Dugas, M., & Pushkar, D. (2003). Are women perceived as engaging in more maladaptive worry than men? A status interpretation. Sex Roles, 49(1/2), 110. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023901417591CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crandon, T. J., Scott, J. G., Charlson, F. J., & Thomas, H. J. (2022). A social-ecological perspective on climate anxiety in children and adolescents. Nature Climate Change, 12, 123131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham, E. G., Brandon, C. M., & Frydenberg, E. (2002). Enhancing coping resources in early adolescence through a school-based program teaching optimistic thinking skills. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 15(4), 369381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damon, W. (2008). The path to purpose: How young people find their calling in life. Free Press.Google Scholar
Edlund, S. M., Carlsson, M. L., Linton, S. J., Fruzzetti, A. E., & Tillfors, M. (2015). I see you’re in pain: The effects of partner validation on emotions in people with chronic pain. Scandinavian Journal of Pain, 6(1), 1621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjpain.2014.07.003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 4, 241273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnegan, W. (2022). Educating for hope and action competence: A study of secondary school students and teachers in England. Environmental Education Research, 29(11), 16171636. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2120963CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fløttum, K., Dahl, T., & Rivenes, V. (2016). Young Norwegians and their views on climate change and the future: Findings from a climate concerned and oil-rich nation. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(8), 11281143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folkman, S. (1997). Positive psychological states and coping with severe stress. Social Science & Medicine, (45)8, 12071221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Folkman, S. (2008). The case for positive emotions in the stress process. Anxiety, Stress & Coping: An International Journal, 21(1), 314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Folkman, S., & Moskowitz, J. T. (2000). Positive affect and the other side of coping. American Psychologist, 55(6), 647654.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fredrickson, B. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fritze, J. G., Blashki, G. A., Burke, S., & Wiseman, J. (2008). Hope, despair and transformation: Climate change and the promotion of metal health and wellbeing. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 7(2), 213.Google Scholar
Frydenberg, E. (2008). Adolescent coping: Advances in theory, research, and practice. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geiger, N., Gore, A., Squire, C. V., & Attari, S. Z. (2021). Investigating similarities and differences in individual reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. Climatic Change, 167, 12, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03143-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillham, J., & Reivich, K. (2004). Cultivating optimism in childhood and adolescence. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 146163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenglass, E. R (2002). Proactive coping and quality of life management. In Frydenberg, E. (Ed.), Beyond coping: meeting goals, visions, and challenges (pp. 3962). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hallis, D., & Slone, M. (1999). Coping strategies and locus of control as mediating variables in the relation between exposure to political life events and psychological adjustment in Israeli children. International Journal of Stress Management, 6, 105123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., … van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: A global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5, e863–e873, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00278-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, D. (2014). Educating for hope in troubled times. Climate change and the transition to a post-carbon future. Trentham Books.Google Scholar
Homburg, A., & Stolberg, A. (2006). Explaining pro-environmental behavior with a cognitive theory of stress. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 26, 114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Homburg, A., Stolberg, A., & Wagner, U. (2007). Coping with global environmental problems development and first validation of scales. Environment and Behavior, 39, 754778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joelsson, K. (2021). “Look to the young”: A study on climate change coping, emotion, and hope among emerging adults. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Uppsala University, Sweden.Google Scholar
Larsen, J. T., Hemenover, S. H., Norris, C. J., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2003). Turning adversity to advantage: On the virtues of the coactivation of positive and negative emotions. In Aspinwall, L. G. & Staudinger, U. M. (Eds.), A psychology of human strengths: Fundamental questions and future directions for a positive psychology (pp. 211226). American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. L., Haase, E., & Trope, A. (2020). Climate dialectics in psychotherapy: Holding open the space between abyss and advance. Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 48(3), 271294. https://doi.org/10.1521/pdps.2020.48.3.271CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, K. K., Shramko, M., Brown, C., & Svetaz, M. V. (2021). The election is over, now what? Youth civic engagement as a path to critical consciousness. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(2), 233235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, W., & Streb, M. (2001). Building citizenship: How student voice in service-learning develops civic values. Social Science Quarterly, 82(1), 154169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, C., Eastman-Mueller, H., & Barbich, N. (2019). Empowering change agents: Youth organizing groups as sites for sociopolitical development. American Journal of Community Psychology, 63(1–2), 4660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Niederhoffer, K. G., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2009). Sharing one’s story: On the benefits of writing or talking about emotional experience. In Lopez, S. J. & Snyder, C. R. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 621632). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ojala, M. (2007). Confronting macrosocial worries. Worry about environmental problems and proactive coping among a group of young volunteers. Futures, 39(6), 729745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2012a). How do children cope with global climate change? Coping strategies, engagement, and well-being. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32, 225233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2012b). Regulating worry, promoting hope: How do children, adolescents, and young adults cope with climate change? International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 7(4), 537561.Google Scholar
Ojala, M. (2013). Coping with climate change among adolescents: Implications for subjective well-being and environmental engagement. Sustainability. Special issue on Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Sustainability, 5(5): 21912209.Google Scholar
Ojala, M. (2015). Hope in the face of climate change: Associations with environmental engagement and student perceptions of teachers’ emotion communication style and future orientation. Journal of Environmental Education, 46(3), 133148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2023a). Climate-change education and critical emotional awareness (CEA): Implications for teacher education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 55(11), 11091120. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2081150CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2023b). Hope and climate-change engagement from a psychological perspective. Current Opinion in Psychology, 49, 101514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101514CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ojala, M., & Bengtsson, H. (2019). Young people’s coping strategies concerning climate change: Relations to perceived communication with parents and friends and pro-environmental behavior. Environment and Behavior, 51(8), 907935. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916518763894CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, A., & Vasishth, A. (2021). Exploring how the tone of written climate change communication influences coping strategies. Journal of Student Research, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i3.2141CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, C. L., & Folkman, S. (1997). Meaning in the context of stress and coping, Review of General Psychology, 1(2), 115144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettersson, A. (2014). De som inte kan simma kommer nog att dö!: En studie om barns tankar och känslor rörande klimatförändringarna. Unpublished licentiate thesis, Uppsala University, Sweden.Google Scholar
Renouf, J. S. (2021). Making sense of climate change – the lived experience of experts. Climatic Change, 164, 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-02986-5Google Scholar
Reser, J. P., & Swim, J. K. (2011). Adapting to and coping with the threat and impacts of climate change. American Psychologist, 66(4), 277289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwartz, S. E. O., Benoit, L., Clayton, S., Parnes, M. F., Swenson, L., & Lowe, S. R. (2022). Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer. Current Psychology, 42, 16708–16721. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02735-6Google Scholar
Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. Free Press.Google Scholar
Simon, P. D., Pakingan, K. A., & Benzon R. Aruta, J. J. (2022). Measurement of climate change anxiety and its mediating effect between experience of climate change and mitigation actions of Filipino youth. Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 39(1), 1727. https://doi.org/10.1080/20590776.2022.2037390CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, C. R., Rand, K. L., & Sigmon, D. R. (2001). Hope theory. A member of the positive psychology family. In Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 257275). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speer, P. W., Christens, B. D., & Peterson, N. A. (2021). Participation in community organizing: Cross‐sectional and longitudinal analyses of impacts on sociopolitical development. Journal of Community Psychology, 49(8), 31943214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stanton, A. L., & Low, C. A. (2012). Expressing emotions in stressful contexts: Benefits, moderators, and mechanisms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 124128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, I., Martin, A., Wicker, A., & Benoit, L. (2022). Understanding youths’ concerns about climate change: a binational qualitative study of ecological burden and resilience. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 16(110). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00551-1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vandaele, M., & Stålhammar, S. (2022). “Hope dies, action begins?” The role of hope for proactive sustainability engagement among university students. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23, 272289, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-11-2021-0463CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Zomeren, M., Spears, R., & Leach, C. W. (2010). Experimental evidence for a dual pathway model analysis of coping with the climate crises. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(4), 339346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wullenkord, M., & Ojala, M. (2023). Climate-change worry among two cohorts of late adolescents: Exploring macro and micro worries, coping, and relations to engagement and wellbeing. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 90, 102093, doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, C. T., Ray, H., & Liu, L. (2019). The relationship between metacognitive reflection, PBL, and postformal thinking among first-year learning community students. Learning Communities Research and Practice, 7(2), Article 3.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×