Discovering emotional patterns for climate change and for the COVID-19 pandemic in university students

Vanessa Kulcar; Heidi Siller; Barbara Juen

doi:10.1016/j.joclim.2022.100125

Discovering emotional patterns for climate change and for the COVID-19 pandemic in university students

J Clim Chang Health. 2022 May:6:100125. doi: 10.1016/j.joclim.2022.100125. Epub 2022 Feb 22.

Authors

Vanessa Kulcar^{1

2}, Heidi Siller³, Barbara Juen¹

Affiliations

¹ University of Innsbruck, Department of Psychology, Innrain 52f, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
² Disaster Competence Network Austria, Gregor-Mendel-Strasse 33, 1180 Wien, Austria.
³ University of Klagenfurt, Department of Psychology, Universitätsstrasse 65-67, 9020 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria.

Abstract

The global crises of climate change and of the COVID-19 pandemic are straining young peoples' mental health and their mitigation behaviours. We surveyed German-speaking university students aged 18 to 30 years on their negative emotions regarding both crises repeatedly before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Different emotional patterns emerged for climate change and for COVID-19 with negative emotions regarding COVID-19 increasing during the pandemic. We were further able to differentiate between emotional responses associated with impaired wellbeing and those associated with mitigation efforts. Our findings emphasise the need to focus on a mixture of highly inactivating and activating emotions regarding COVID-19 as they are associated with both reduced wellbeing and mitigation behaviours. The findings broaden the understanding of how young adults react to the burden of two global crises and what role negative emotions play.

Keywords: COVID-19; Climate change; Emotions; Mental health; Mitigation behaviour; Young adults.