Emotional reactions to climate change and associated coping strategies: a grounded theory study on graduate students of sustainability-related programmes

Abstract: Climate change is happening. Yet this phenomenon does not only concern the environment, but also has various notable and important psychological implications for individuals in particular and society in general. Understanding such psychological impacts is crucial for an effective process of mitigation of climate change consequences, however there is limited research about vicarious emotional responses to the threat of climate change. On the other hand, engaging with sustainable development and climate change education is sensibly being widely accepted and embraced as a crucial step towards solving anthropo-generated environmental issues and learning to live within planetary boundaries. Hence, I focused on investigating the most common emotional reactions to climate change and relevant preferred coping strategies among graduate students of sustainability-related programmes to provide some more profound insights in emotional resilience and psychological well-being of the students. In order to do so, I provide an overview of relevant notions of emotion and coping as well as Smith and Lazarus’ structural model of appraisal. Then, I show how I used constructivist grounded theory. Through the process of meticulous coding and development of categories, I identified and constructed a visual representation of students’ emotional reactions to climate change and associated coping strategies. Throughout their education students experienced a variety of emotions, most prominent of which were worry, guilt, anger, frustration, powerlessness, confusion, and hope; yet typical solitary patterns of experiencing distinct emotions were absent and different students experienced different emotions. Moreover, students did not necessarily experience just one exclusive emotion, but a combination or alternation of several emotions. Students utilised a range of emotion-, problem-, and meaning-focused coping strategies, which are described in detail. The most effective coping strategies for students were further active engagement and contribution, decomposing climate change and addressing smaller challenges, turning negative emotions into one’s advantage (positive reappraisal/reframing) and acceptance as they provided relief of negative emotions and elicitation of positive ones. Furthermore, even though several negative emotions and avoidance strategies might have disadvantageous effects on the overall subjective well-being of the students as well as their motivation to be engaged in climate change mitigation, the same emotions can be beneficial in this regard too. This thesis is of special interests for teachers, educators, and researchers in the domain of sustainability education (education for sustainable development).