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

IF 2.9 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

{"title":"The role of parental identity in experiencing climate change anxiety and pro-environmental behaviors.","authors":"Mariana Pinho","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1579893","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"16 ","pages":"1579893"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975853/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1579893","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

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.

查看原文

微信好友朋友圈 QQ好友复制链接

本刊更多论文

父母身份在经历气候变化焦虑和亲环境行为中的作用。

气候变化是社会最严重的危机之一，对人类健康构成威胁，对心理健康产生严重影响。气候焦虑已被确定为气候变化的一个重要心理健康后果。方法：目前的研究考察了社会心理特征在气候变化焦虑和亲环境行为中的作用，使用了葡萄牙父母的全国代表性样本，他们完成了广泛的问卷调查。结果：更多的中心父母身份与气候变化焦虑呈负相关，揭示中心父母身份可能是预防心理健康问题的保护因素。父母身份中心性也预示着更多的亲环境行为。研究结果进一步表明，环境认同与气候变化感知呈正相关，并预测更高水平的气候变化焦虑和亲环境行为。最后，通过气候变化焦虑，父母身份中心性与更大的亲环境行为有关，为研究塑造亲环境行为的潜在机制做出了重要贡献。讨论：这些发现揭示了气候焦虑和亲环境行为背后和影响它们的复杂机制，这对于缓解气候危机的严重后果是必要的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文去求助

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.