Does climate change dread leave us too powerless to act?

By Stephen Beech

People are more likely to back policies aimed at tackling climate change when they feel fearful, suggests new research.

But feelings of dread make us less likely to support green schemes, according to the findings.

Researchers also found that women have both stronger climate change belief and greater support for climate policies than men.

The British study is the first to investigate if "incidental state emotions" - referring to how people are feeling in that moment - can predict people’s belief in climate change and their willingness to adapt "green" habits.

Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge assessed 418 British participants for 10 emotions including fear, anger, sadness, guilt and dread.

The research team also measured their belief in climate change and rated their support for a series of climate policies - including increasing taxes on airlines to offset carbon emissions, investing more in green jobs and businesses, and raising taxes on fossil fuels.

The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, showed that feeling fearful was associated with greater support for such climate policies, whereas feeling dread meant less support.

The study also found that belief in climate change was already high amongst the UK participants.

When asked to rate four statements including “human activities are causing climate change” and “climate change is a global emergency,” participants scored an average of 339 out of 400, indicating broad public acceptance, although individual emotions did not predict participants’ levels of belief.

Study lead author Dr. Sarah Gradidge said: “Much of the research so far has looked at emotional reactions to climate change itself, such as eco‑anxiety.

"Our study is the first to look at whether the everyday emotions people are feeling, whether they’re thinking about climate change or not, influence people’s belief in climate change and their willingness to support policies designed to address it."

Dr. Gradidge explained that dread is understood as an intense, overwhelming form of fear accompanied by a sense of inevitability, which they suggest may leave people feeling powerless and less likely to believe that policies will be effective or worthwhile.

She says that fits with previous studies that have suggested an “inverted‑U” relationship between fear intensity and behavioural change – experiencing manageable levels of fear is mobilising, while too little fear fails to motivate and too much fear can cause us to disengage altogether.

Dr. Gradidge, a lecturer in psychology at ARU, said: “Despite being the most similar of the 10 emotions we tested, our results show a clear and important difference between fear and dread.

"Feeling fearful appears to motivate people and is linked with greater support for climate policies.

"However, dread, which can be thought of as a more intense, overwhelming form of fear, is associated with lower support for climate policies."

She added: “Our findings suggest that any strategies aimed at building public support for climate policies may benefit from evoking manageable levels of fear, to encourage people to engage and support solutions.

"Going too far may leave people feeling powerless and therefore less inclined to back the policies being proposed.”