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Expressing Climate Emotions in a Climate-Distress-Workshop : A Thematic Analysis

Krähling, H.M. (2023) Expressing Climate Emotions in a Climate-Distress-Workshop : A Thematic Analysis.

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Abstract:For this study, a climate distress workshop including reading and writing exercises was conducted with students to gain insights into their emotional experience of climate change. I qualitatively analysed the discussion held in the workshop with thematic analysis concerning how participants made sense of these experiences. Seven themes occurred of which Anxiety about detrimental climate change consequences, Helpfulness of climate-change-group-activities and solidarity and Avoiding climate change to manage climate change distress were the most frequent. Furthermore, participants described wanting to avoid climate change to manage their distress, anticipated emotional adaptation in case of a climate change catastrophe and critically reflected on the productivity of climate emotions. Different from previous literature, participants discussed emotions as highly interconnected and as part of an ongoing emotional process rather than in category-like terms. Concluding, participants shared different complex emotional processes with elaborate explanations regarding their experience of climate emotions and gave positive feedback on the workshop. For the future, I suggest research on the interconnectedness and the processual nature of climate emotions. Moreover, I propose a full-length reading and writing group about climate change to support people with climate distress.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/95711
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