Understanding late adolescents’ moral responsibility for climate change: The role of social-ecological factors, worry, and distancing

Addressing climate change requires people in the Global North to avoid high-impact behaviors like car use and air travel. Late adolescents, whose engagement in such behaviors may be restricted by age and parental decision-making, are in a crucial stage for developing a sense of moral responsibility for climate change. Understanding why some adolescents cultivate this responsibility is vital, as responsibility relates to both pro-environmental engagement and well-being. Therefore, this study aims to identify factors associated with late adolescents' sense of moral responsibility. Nature connectedness, parental descriptive norms, and macro climate-change worry have been positively linked to pro-environmental behavior in previous research, but their role in relation to moral responsibility regarding climate change remains less clear. Similarly, the relationship between distancing coping and moral responsibility is yet to be fully understood. In this study we explore ways that these factors are associated with late adolescents’ moral responsibility and examine whether these relationships differ between girls and boys. In 2023, we surveyed 619 Swedish high school students (ages 16–20). We used structural equation modeling to answer our research questions. Connectedness to nature, parental norms, worry, and distancing coping were positively associated with responsibility, with parental norms having a stronger effect for boys. Worry partially mediated how parental norms and nature connectedness related to responsibility, with a stronger mediation effect for girls in the latter relationship. Distancing coping did not moderate the relationship between worry and responsibility. Our findings are interpreted within social-ecological and emotion-norm frameworks, and we suggest promoting responsibility through nature connectedness, role modeling, and constructive worry management. Limitations, including those related to cross-sectional designs, are discussed. • Both social-ecological and emotion-related factors associate with responsibility. • Worry mediates the relationship between nature connectedness and responsibility. • Worry mediates the relationship between parental norms and responsibility. • Gender differences are explored across the study's research questions.