Heeren Alexandre, Mouguiama-Daouda Camille, Contreras Alba
Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place du Cardinal Mercier, 10, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
Clim Change. 2022;173(1-2):15. doi: 10.1007/s10584-022-03402-2. Epub 2022 Jul 27.
The notion of climate anxiety has gained traction in the last years. Yet uncertainty remains regarding the variations of climate anxiety across demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age) and its associations with adaptive (i.e., pro-environmental) behaviors. Moreover, the point-estimate proportion of people frequently experiencing climate anxiety has seldom been probed. In this study, we assessed climate anxiety (including its related functional impairments), along with demographic characteristics, climate change experience, and pro-environmental behaviors, in 2080 French-speaking participants from eight African and European countries. 11.64% of the participants reported experiencing climate anxiety frequently, and 20.72% reported experiencing daily life functional consequences (e.g., impact on the ability to go to work or socialize). Women and younger people exhibited significantly higher levels of climate anxiety. There was no difference between participants from African and European countries, although the sample size of the former was limited, thus precluding any definite conclusion regarding potential geographic differences. Concerning adaptation, climate anxiety was associated with pro-environmental behaviors. However, this association was significantly weaker in people reporting frequent experiences of climate anxiety (i.e., eco-paralysis) than in those with lower levels. Although this observation needs to be confirmed in longitudinal and experimental research, our results suggest that climate anxiety can impede daily life functioning and adaptation to climate change in many people, thus deserving a careful audit by the scientific community and practitioners.
The online version contains supplementary material. Available at: 10.1007/s10584-022-03402-2.
气候焦虑的概念在过去几年中受到了关注。然而，关于气候焦虑在人口统计学特征（如性别、年龄）方面的差异及其与适应性（即亲环境）行为的关联仍存在不确定性。此外，很少有人探究经常经历气候焦虑的人群的点估计比例。在本研究中，我们评估了来自八个非洲和欧洲国家的2080名法语使用者的气候焦虑（包括其相关的功能损害），以及人口统计学特征、气候变化经历和亲环境行为。11.64%的参与者报告经常经历气候焦虑，20.72%的参与者报告经历了日常生活功能后果（如对工作或社交能力的影响）。女性和年轻人表现出明显更高水平的气候焦虑。非洲和欧洲国家的参与者之间没有差异，尽管前者的样本量有限，因此无法就潜在的地理差异得出任何明确结论。关于适应性，气候焦虑与亲环境行为相关。然而，这种关联在报告经常经历气候焦虑的人群（即生态麻痹）中比在水平较低的人群中明显更弱。尽管这一观察结果需要在纵向和实验研究中得到证实，但我们的结果表明，气候焦虑会妨碍许多人的日常生活功能和对气候变化的适应，因此值得科学界和从业者进行仔细审查。
在线版本包含补充材料。可在：10.1007/s10584-022-03402-2获取。
