Determinants of climate anxiety and willingness for climate-friendly behavioral change in German students: a quantitative study

Background: Young people are increasingly concerned about climate change, which can have a negative impact on their mental health. Course content about the health consequences of climate change, as found in students of health-related subjects, is associated with increased climate anxiety. Climate anxiety can be both an understandable reaction to a real crisis that leads to climate-friendly behavior and a functional impairment that undermines the ability to act. The aims of the study are to identify risk and protective factors of students for functional impairment due to climate anxiety and factors that promote the willingness of students to climate-friendly behavioral change. Methods: Students of health-related subjects were surveyed using a quantitative online questionnaire. Age, gender, trait anxiety, personality, nature connectedness, climate-specific health literacy, and climate anxiety were recorded. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Results: Neuroticism, trait anxiety, connectedness to nature, female gender, knowledge of the consequences of climate change, perceived relevance of climate change, and the belief that climate change poses a personal health risk are all positively and significantly associated with climate anxiety. Significantly positive associated with the willingness for climate-friendly behavioral change are climate anxiety, openness, and perceived action efficacy. Adding a quadratic term for climate anxiety suggests that the relationship between climate anxiety and willingness may not be linear and decreases as climate anxiety increases. Conclusions: As our results do not indicate any protective factors against impairment due to climate anxiety, this topic should be researched further. Future work should give special consideration to young female students, whose anxiety, neuroticism, and nature connectedness are more pronounced, as a potential risk group. Interventions that promote climate-friendly behavioral changes should appeal to open-minded students and reinforce their belief that their behavior impacts climate change. Additionally, it should be investigated how to motivate students who are less open-minded to climate-friendly behavioral change.