Browsing by Subject "Ilmastonmuutokseen liittyvä hyvinvointi"

Aims. The main aim of this study is to shed light on how climate change is affecting adolescents’ well-being and behavior. Adolescents around the world are feeling increasing amount of climate change related worries, anxiousness, uncertainty and insecurity, even in western countries in which extreme climate events are rare. Adolescences’ well-being is connected to their tendencies to engage to pro-environmental behavior. Burnout studies work as a background for climate change related well-being in this study. Pro-environmental behavior is explicated with Theory of Planed Behavior, Norm Active Model and emotion studies. The aim is to answer two research questions: 1) What kind of climate change related well-being and behavior profiles can be identified amongst adolescence in upper secondary school; 2) How does the profiles differ based on gender, GPA, financial situation of the family, sustainability knowledge, civic engagement, school-burnout and general well-being? Methods. The data was collected with online questionnaire from 886 Finnish upper secondary school students living in capital area. The participants were 18—20 years-old by the time the data was collected. The first aim of the study was answered by using Latent Profile Analysis. The second aim was examined by using one-way analysis of variance with Post hoc tests to find out how the profiles differed from each other. Results and conclusions. Three profiles were found: Overburdened by climate change (14 %), eco-anxious ones (42 %) and de-emphasizers of climate change (44 %). Those who were overburdened by climate change scored highest on climate change related emotional exhaustion and inadequacy. They also engaged more often to pro-environmental activities. Young adults belonging to the eco-anxious group felt climate change related inadequacy and engaged to pro-environmental activities but they were not emotionally exhausted by climate change. De-emphasizers of climate change did not feel climate change related exhaustion nor inadequacy. They did not engaged to pro-environmental behavior. The overburdened group reported the lowest self-esteem and they suffered more from depression and school burnout symptoms than the members of the other two profiles. De-emphasizers of climate change had the lowest GPA and the lowest scores on school related emotional exhaustion and inadequacy. There were no differences between the profiles based on sustainability knowledge.