‘You can't live in fear all the time’: Affective dilemmas in Youth's discussions on climate change in Norway

Emotional responses to anthropogenic climate change have attracted significant attention. People negotiate emotions through culturally available frameworks. This study, based on 18 focus group discussions, explores in detail three instances of how Norwegian youth engage affectively with climate change. Utilising affect and discourse theory, we conceptualise affective dilemmas as conflicts arising from contradictory expectations made available through discourse. These dilemmas are negotiated through affective-discursive practices. Through a discourse-oriented analysis, we illustrate how ecological distress is interpreted, enacted, and resisted. We identified three key affective-discursive dilemmas: (a) climate anxiety as voluntary versus involuntary, (b) fear as motivation versus a barrier for climate action, and (c) responsibility for climate actions versus self-care. Participants engaged in practices such as (a) purposeful engagement with climate anxiety, (b) detachment from ecological distress, and (c) self-care and staying positive. The study contributes to social psychology by applying affective-discursive theory to understand how youth make sense of and use eco-emotion categories in dialogue. It empirically shows how discussions on ecological issues reflect cultural expectations of self-care and positivity and individualised emotional management. The analysis highlights how socio-cultural imperatives shape youths' emotional responses, which may sideline collective climate action and favour psychological solutions to ecological crises.