Keeping cool in the heat: Emotion regulation in response to climate change

Climate change is a global crisis that evokes strong emotions. However, it is unclear which strategies people adopt to regulate these emotions, and how these strategies predict affective well-being and pro-environmental engagement. The aim of the present study was to get a better understanding of usage and effectiveness of a broad set of emotion regulation strategies in the context of climate change. At wave 1 (N = 325 participants), we assessed emotion regulation, affective well-being, past pro-environmental behavior and future pro-environmental behavioral intentions. Four weeks later, at wave 2 (N = 137 participants), pro-environmental behavior was again assessed. Other-blame was the most often used regulation strategy in the context of climate change. Rumination and self-blame were found to involve a key tradeoff as usage of these strategies was associated with higher pro-environmental engagement but lower affective well-being. In contrast, seeking social support was positively related to both pro-environmental engagement and affective well-being. These results demonstrate the importance of simultaneously examining well-being outcomes and behavioral outcomes in emotion regulation research in the context of climate change.