Eco Anxiety levels compared between LGBTQ+ and Cishet groups of Dutch and German Nationality and the role of Environmental Action

Introduction This thesis addressed the research gap in regards to mental health impact of climate change on LGBTQ+ individuals by comparing LGBTQ+ eco-anxiety levels to that of cishet individuals. This study furthermore addresses the gap regarding whether or not LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to engage in climate change activism. This study therefore studied LGBTQ+ identity as a moderating effect between eco-anxiety and environmental action and compared environmental action levels between LGBTQ+ and cishet individuals. Earlier studies found nationality differences in eco-anxiety although these studies lacked sufficient LGBTQ+ representation, this study addressed this by comparing the eco-anxiety level between Dutch and German individuals in a more diverse sample. Methods This cross-sectional study used an online survey to measure eco-anxiety and environmental action by using the Eco-Anxiety questionnaire (EAQ) and Environmental Action scale (EAS) respectively. The sample (N=105) included (n=35) LGBTQ+ individuals, with (n=70) individuals identifying as cishet. In regards to the nationality of the sample (n=52) participants were German, while (n=53) were of Dutch nationality. Results The group comparisons were conducted using the Mann-Whitney U test, findings indicated a higher score on eco-anxiety (p=<.001) and environmental action (p=.01) for LGBTQ+ individuals. The comparison between nationalities revealed a higher eco-anxiety score for German individuals (p=<0.001). A moderate positive relationship (p=<.001) was found between eco-anxiety and environmental action, in accordance with earlier research that studied the connection between activism and eco-anxiety. However, the moderation effect of LGBTQ+ identity on the relationship between eco-anxiety and environmental action was not found (p=.07). Discussion-conclusion This study concluded that those identifying as LGBTQ+ showed higher eco-anxiety and environmental action levels in comparison to cishet individuals, although the moderation effect of LGBTQ+ identity was not found. The low power of this study likely contributed to an inability to effectively test for moderation, and the low LGBTQ+ sample size should be taken into account in regards to the findings of this study.