Coping with climate anxiety: impacts on functioning in Australian adolescents.

ObjectiveMethodResultsConclusions\nKEY POINTSBeing aware of climatic threats can evoke climate anxiety in youth, wherein young people may draw on coping strategies to manage this experience. To further understand the helpfulness of climate anxiety and coping, this study explored whether these experiences in adolescence are related to adaptive functioning or impairment.Australian adolescents aged 12–20 years (<italic>n</italic> = 261), recruited through social media or school-based participation, completed an online survey. Various cognitive styles of coping and behavioural coping strategies were assessed.Several styles of coping were found to be differentially related to functioning. Positive reappraisal of climate change was associated with reduced personal and occupational functional impairment. Meaning-focused reappraisal and pro-environmental coping were positively associated with adaptive functioning (e.g. higher motivation, greater connection to others). In contrast, catastrophising was inversely associated with adaptive functioning. De-emphasising the threat of climate change was related to social functional impairment, but also adaptive functioning. Finally, the more a young person experienced physiological symptoms of climate anxiety, they more they reported personal, occupational and social functional impairment.Supporting adolescents as they learn to navigate and cope with climate anxiety, as well as climate change more broadly, may help protect youth wellbeing and functioning long-term.<bold>What is already known about this topic:</bold>(1) Young people are among the most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.(2) Being aware of these threats can evoke “climate anxiety”.(3) Young people may cope with climate change and climate anxiety using a range of cognitive styles and coping behaviours.<bold>What this topic adds:</bold>The way young people cope with climate anxiety may impact their functioning:(1) Positive reappraisal of climate change was related to reduced impairments to personal and occupational domains in adolescents.(2) The more an adolescent used meaning-focused reappraisal and pro-environmental coping, the more they reported greater adaptive functioning. In contrast, the more they used catastrophising, the less they reported adaptive functioning.(3) De-emphasising the threats of climate change was positively associated with social functional impairment in adolescents, but also adaptive functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]