Hope and climate-change engagement from a psychological perspective

Exploring influences of environmental information, beliefs and self-efficacy on nurses' climate health behaviours and their relationships

BACKGROUND

To create a healthy nursing environment and protect human health in response to climate change, it is essential to encourage behaviour change among nurses. Although numerous studies have been conducted on nurses to address climate change, few studies have explored the relationships of factors that influence and promote nurses' climate health behavioural behavioural change, making it difficult to determine how nurses should act and prioritise regarding climate health behaviours.

AIMS

To investigate influential environmental factors on climate health behaviours among nurses through the causal relationships between environmental information, environmental beliefs and environmental self-efficacy using the Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills (IMB) model.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional study.

METHODS

This study recruited 186 nurses working in hospitals nationwide in July 2023. Self-reported questionnaires (Climate, Health, and Nursing Tool; National Environmental Consciousness Survey; New Ecological Paradigm Scale; Personal Efficacy Scale) were used to collect the data. Path analysis was performed.

RESULTS

The factors influencing nurses' climate health behaviours were environmental information, environmental beliefs and environmental self-efficacy. Environmental self-efficacy was found to be more influenced by the exogenous variables of environmental information than environmental beliefs and to be the most significant factor affecting climate health behaviours.

CONCLUSIONS

It is more important for nurses to obtain environmental information than environmental beliefs to achieve the goal of climate health behaviours. This in turn, will lead to personal self-efficacy that nurses can mitigate the climate crisis. Their strong self-efficacy affects their climate health behaviours.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION

Nurses should seek and draw on the appropriate environmental information related to climate health change and nurses with environmental self-efficacy become environmental nursing leaders, encouraging other health care workers to participate actively in climate health behaviours and continuously carry out the behaviours within daily life, hospital and community environments.

IMPACT

The study addressed the lack of relationship research on factors influencing nurses' climate health behaviours, emphasizing the importance of accessing environmental information to foster self-efficacy. Nurses with heightened self-efficacy can lead healthcare professionals in climate health actions.

REPORTING METHOD

This research has adhered to relevant EQUATOR and STROBE.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No Patient or Public Contribution.

Hopium or empowering hope? A meta-analysis of hope and climate engagement

Researchers are increasingly examining whether hope can motivate action on climate change, or conversely, whether it might demotivate such action. We present a meta-analysis (k = 46) of quantitative studies examining the relationships between measures and manipulations of hope with climate engagement. On average, measured hope was associated with greater climate engagement (r = 0.18); however, this effect differed based on the target of hope. Hope regarding the possibility of respondents taking action was particularly strongly associated with greater engagement (r = 0.40), while in contrast, hope grounded in climate change not being a problem was associated with less engagement (r = -0.40). Hope in response to climate change generally, and domain-general hope, were only weakly associated with greater engagement (rs = 0.13, 0.20). On average, hope manipulations fostered increased engagement, though the increase was small (Cohen's d = 0.08). Subgroup analyses suggested two promising types of hope manipulations warranting future research: personal efficacy (k = 2, d = 0.18) and in-depth (k = 2, d = 0.49). In contrast, messages suggesting societal efficacy (i.e., providing a sense of possibility that climate change could be addressed) did not significantly or substantially boost (nor discourage) engagement (d = 0.05), and status quo-framed messages (i.e., messages highlighting that environmental conditions could stay the same if climate action is taken) had a marginally significant negative effect on engagement (d = -0.18). After excluding a single outlier, the extent to which manipulations increased hope were not correlated with increases in climate engagement, suggesting the possibility that hope might be incidental to the success of some manipulations rather than a necessary component for promoting engagement. Overall, our meta-analysis does not suggest that increasing hope decreases climate engagement, with the possible exceptions of denial hope and status quo framed messages. Conversely, however, results provide partial yet inconclusive evidence for the hypothesis that increasing hope increases climate engagement. Given the existing published literature, we argue that future researchers should consider study designs that align with theoretical perspectives on how hope promotes climate engagement (e.g., longitudinal designs) and also consider directly assessing populations of interest (e.g., climate activists).

Climate-friendly food-choice intentions among emerging adults: extending the theory of planned behavior with objective ambivalence, climate-change worry and optimism

Climate-friendly food choices are still relatively rarely addressed in studies investigating climate engagement, particularly among young people. To address this research gap, we conducted a questionnaire study with senior high school students (N = 474). Our overarching theoretical framework is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which we extended with emotional factors (climate-change worry and optimism) and attitudinal ambivalence. We found that all factors included, except for optimism, correlated with the food-choice intentions. In multiple regression analyses, worry was the second strongest predictor, after attitudes. Moreover, a measure of objective ambivalence moderated the correlation between attitudes and intentions by weakening it. The results support the validity of using the TPB model when explaining intentions to make climate-friendly food choices among emerging adults. However, our results suggest that it is also important to consider emotions-in this case climate-change worry-and the existence of conflicting evaluations about choosing climate-friendly food.

Stories of hope created together: A pilot, school-based workshop for sharing eco-emotions and creating an actively hopeful vision of the future

The climate and ecological crises challenge all communities across the world, with the greatest impact upon the most vulnerable and the youngest. There are multiple impacts on mental health, including the psychological burdens that arise with increasing awareness of the loss, threat and injustice caused by these crises. Large numbers of young people globally are understandably concerned and distressed about these crises, whilst simultaneously reporting that their concerns are regularly dismissed and ignored, particularly by those in power. This can increase feelings of isolation and distress, particularly if they have no recourse to effect change. This pilot project sought to explore how a schools-based, co-created workshop for school pupils aged 16 to 18 years could use a community-oriented space to explore their eco-emotions, address feelings of isolation and engender a sense of realistic, active hope, using storytelling and images of possible futures. A 3-h workshop for delivery in schools was co-designed with young people, researchers, educators and clinicians, using principles of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Six school pupils aged 16-18 years consented and four completed the workshop, which involved a range of group-based activities to explore their understanding of the climate and ecological crises, support emotional expression related to these and engage in storytelling about hopeful and realistic futures. A live illustrator in attendance created shared images of the participants' fears and hopes. The workshop was recorded, transcribed and analysed using Thematic Analysis and sentiment analysis. Feedback was sought from participants at 1 and 4 weeks after completion and analysed using content analysis. Results indicated that participants reported a range of painful and positive emotions about the crises. They highly valued having space to express their experience alongside others. Storytelling and creativity appeared to help them articulate their feelings and hopes for the future, and gave them greater motivation and confidence in talking to others about these topics. This innovative pilot study suggests that a school-based youth participatory group could offer a novel way of helping young people to engage more with the climate and ecological crises in a way that supports their wellbeing. It provides strong support for future, larger-scale projects in this area.