The role of parental identity in experiencing climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behaviors.

IF 2.6 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Frontiers in Psychology Pub Date : 2025-03-25 eCollection Date: 2025-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1579893

Mariana Pinho

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Abstract

Introduction: Climate change is one of society's most severe crisis, presenting a health threat to humans with serious impacts on mental health. Climate anxiety has been identified as an important mental health consequence of climate change.

Methods: The current study examined the role of social psychological characteristics on climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behavior, using a nationally representative sample of Portuguese parents who completed extensive questionnaires.

Results: More central parental identities negatively correlated with and predicted climate change anxiety, revealing that a central parental identity can be a protective factor against mental health issues. Parental identity centrality also predicted greater engagement in pro-environmental behavior. The findings further showed that environmental identity and climate change perceptions were positively related and predicted higher levels climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behavior. Finally, parental identity centrality was linked to greater pro-environmental behavior through climate change anxiety, bringing important contributions to research on the underlying mechanisms that shape pro-environmental behavior.

Discussion: The findings shed light on the complex mechanisms underlying and influencing climate anxiety and pro-environmental behavior, necessary to mitigate the acute consequences of the climate crisis.

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

7396

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.