Coping with Climate Anxiety: Self-efficacy is a Potential Factor in Preventing Negative Effects on Mental Wellbeing

Facets of climate change related distress have been shown to be negatively associated with mental wellbeing, fueling discourses on their potential clinical significance. We assume that efficacy beliefs – a person’s confidence in being able to help mitigate climate change, individually or as part of a collective – serve as a protective factor against negative effects on mental wellbeing that may arise from climate change related distress. In this preregistered cross-sectional study, we put this assumption to an initial test. We used a sample of n = 889 citizens in Germany, roughly representative of the general population, and focused on climate anxiety as a facet of climate change related distress. We hypothesized that climate anxiety would be negatively correlated with mental wellbeing and that efficacy beliefs would mediate this relationship, showing positive associations with climate anxiety and with mental wellbeing – indicating a suppression effect. Correlation and regression analyses, in which we controlled for participants’ age, gender, socioeconomic status and prior climate change activism, supported these hypotheses. Future research should use longitudinal designs to further explore the assumed role of efficacy beliefs in coping with climate anxiety and preventing negative effects on mental wellbeing.