Hope and climate change: the importance of hope for environmental engagement among young people

Abstract

Although many young people think climate change is an important societal issue, studies indicate that pessimism is quite common. Finding ways to instill hope could therefore be seen as vital. However, is hope positively related to engagement or is it only a sign of illusory optimism? The aim of the study was to explore if hope concerning climate change has a significant relation to pro-environmental behavior as well as an impact on behavior when controlling for already well-known predictors such as values, social influence, knowledge, and gender. Two questionnaire studies were performed, one with a group of Swedish teenagers (n = 723) and one with a group of Swedish young adults (n = 381). ‘Constructive’ hope had a unique positive influence on pro-environmental behavior. Hope based on denial, however, was negatively correlated with pro-environmental behavior in the two samples and was a significant negative predictor in the teenage group. The conclusion is that hope is not only a pleasant feeling but could also work as a motivational force, if one controls for denial. Implications for education concerning sustainable development are discussed.

Keywords:

• hope
• global climate change
• pro-environmental behavior
• education for sustainable development
• climate skepticism

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by research grants to the author from The Swedish Research Council Formas and Gothenburg Energy Research Foundation. In the first empirical study, focusing on teenagers, data were collected as part of the Political Socialization Program, a longitudinal research program at YeS (Youth & Society) at Örebro University, Sweden. Responsible for the planning, implementation, and financing of the collection of data in this project were Professors Erik Amnå, Mats Ekström, Margaret Kerr, and Håkan Stattin. The data collection was supported by grants from Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Many thanks to the project leaders for letting me use this data in the study.

Notes

1. In this article the word ‘behavior’ is used more or less synonymously with ‘action’ and ‘engagement’, i.e. the word ‘behavior’ does not imply action without thinking in a behaviorist sense. Rather, it serves to describe the many different things that people do in their everyday life to try to help in climate change issues. The aim is to explore whether certain ways of thinking and understanding (sources of hope) co-vary with engagement concerning climate change. For critical comments about emphasizing behavior over thinking see Courtenay-Hall and Rogers (2002) and Gough (2002).

2. In this study worry was defined as cognitive ruminations about uncertain future negative events, accompanied by an anxiety-like negative affect.

3. There are researchers who emphasize that hope in a theoretical sense is not the same as optimism, which is a concept much more related to uncritical certainty, and also sometimes to unrealistic goal setting (McGreer 2004; Snyder et al. 2001, 2002). A study performed in different countries has shown that optimism about the future among teenagers is actually negatively related to their school performance in environmental science (OECD 2009). For a study on unrealistic optimism in an environmental context, see Pahl et al. (2005).

4. Or cognitive restructuring.

5. Four persons did not answer the question about school-level.

6. Three persons did not answer the question about gender.

7. Pilot studies where young people of different age-groups have been asked about what give them hope concerning climate change indicate that denial of the seriousness of the problem is one way to activate hope.

8. For more information about the theoretical structure, validity, and reliability of this scale, see Schwartz (2003).

9. This scale is partly based on items from Stern, Dietz, and Guagnano (1998) and Schwartz (1994). In this study it has been transformed into ‘I’ form to fit with the wording of the altruistic values scale and the age-group in focus. For the original scale see pages 16–7 in this article.

10. Even though most published studies about pro-environmental behavior use self-report measures and although some studies show that self-reported pro-environmental behavior have a satisfactory correspondence with actual behavior (Gamba & Oskamp 1994; Warriner, McDougall, & Claxton 1984), one should be aware that social-desirability could cause self-reported behavior to be slightly overrated compared to actual behavior.

11. One person classified himself/herself as both male and female.

12. Reported income of the household was included here since this factor could possibly be related to energy use.