Understanding coping with the climate crisis: an experimental study with young people on agency and mental health.

Abstract

Background: While the impact of climate change on mental health, especially in young people, has been acknowledged, underlying mechanisms of this relation remain elusive. Based on research on active coping, we explored effects of agency on anxiety and coping in an experimental design. We further examined the relation between mental health (i.e., psychopathology, depressiveness, trait anxiety), trait factors (i.e., climate distress, intolerance of uncertainty, trait coping), state anxiety and coping with climate distress.

Methods: 244 participants (15-25 years) watched a climate anxiety inducing video, followed by an agency manipulation (high agency vs. low agency vs. control). Trait mental health, intolerance of uncertainty, and climate distress and coping were examined as predictors of state anxiety and coping.

Results: State anxiety decreased in the high agency and control conditions, but not in the low agency condition. High agency led to increased meaning-focused coping and low agency to decreased meaning- and problem-focused coping. Trait mental health, problem-focused, and meaning-focused coping strategies each predicted their respective state counterparts. Emotion-focused coping was further predicted by all trait measures.

Conclusion: The findings suggest a risk of low agency communication due to the lack of arousal decrease and lack of using functional coping in young people.