Climate change skepticism among adolescents

Abstract

Young people relate to one of the most serious social problems, global climate change, in different ways. This study focuses on adolescents (Time 1: mean age = 16.6 years) who de-emphasize the seriousness of this problem. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to investigate what factors predict climate skepticism cross-sectionally and what factors predict climate skepticism one year later. Two waves of data were collected (Time 1: n = 870; Time 2: n = 684). Factors important for explaining skepticism among adults (values, knowledge, conservative political orientation, gender, media use), a cluster of variables related to societal powerlessness (distrust, disinterest in societal issues, low environmental efficacy, low tolerance toward immigrants), and descriptive social norms (social influence from parents and peers) were included in the study. With the exception of media use in cross-sectional analyses, and of media use and a conservative political orientation in bivariate longitudinal analyses, all of these factors were significantly associated with skepticism. However, only perceiving parents as having climate skeptical attitudes and low tolerance toward immigrants predicted an increase in climate change skepticism over the one-year period. Results are discussed in relation to earlier studies about climate change skepticism and socialization theories. Implications for climate change education are also discussed.

Keywords:

• descriptive social norms
• values
• tolerance toward immigrant
• environmental efficacy
• youth
• climate change education

Acknowledgments

This study was made possible by access to data from the Political Socialization Program, a longitudinal research program at YeS (Youth & Society) at Örebro University, Sweden. Those responsible for the planning, implementation, and financing of the collection of data were professors Erik Amnå, Mats Ekström, Margaret Kerr, and Håkan Stattin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The data collection was supported by a grant from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The analysis of the data and the writing of the article were sponsored by a grant to the author from the Swedish Research Council Formas.