How do children, adolescents, and young adults relate to climate change? Implications for developmental psychology

ABSTRACT

Climate change is an existential threat facing humanity on a global scale. To handle this problem, all societal actors, including young people, need to get involved. This narrative review focuses on what implications climate change has for research in developmental psychology. It is argued that how young people relate to climate change is closely associated with key issues dealt with in this research field. The aim of this article is to present an overview of research about young people and climate change concerning four interrelated topics: (a) climate change and mental well-being, (b) coping with climate change, (c) private-sphere pro-environmental behaviour as a form of pro-social development, and d) climate change and political socialization. The emphasis is on young people from middle childhood to early adulthood. Implications for future research are discussed, for instance, the need for more longitudinal and intervention studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate-change worry
• pro-environmental behaviour
• coping
• mental well-being
• positive youth development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

Notes

¹ General depression was only measured in the last wave of data collection.

Additional information

Funding

The writing of this article has been supported by a grant to the author by the Swedish Research Council Formas (dnr: 2017-00880)