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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Psychology

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Masters Theses

Climate change

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah May 2022

Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah

Masters Theses

Climate change is a source of anxiety and stress. To be resilient to the changes that are occurring, individuals must cope with that stress. Because there are many ways that people might manage stress we examined variation in coping strategy use among Americans who reported some concern about climate change to understand generally how people cope with such stress, and whether it can be predicted from individual difference factors, namely degree of climate change concern and political ideology. We examined these variables specifically because in the study of responses to climate change, conservatives and liberals often report divergent beliefs, attitudes, …


Getting The Message Across: Flexitarians As Messengers For Meat's Climate Change Impacts, Joel Ginn Feb 2021

Getting The Message Across: Flexitarians As Messengers For Meat's Climate Change Impacts, Joel Ginn

Masters Theses

Meat consumption has been a prominent part of humanity’s dietary culture, particularly in modern, Western developed nations. However, recent research has shown that collectively reducing our consumption of animal products can have major benefits for mitigating our environmental footprint. Despite a consensus among climate scientists on its potential impact, the public does not recognize the effectiveness of this behavioral shift. Recent efforts to address this have created movements and organizations that focus on reduction of meat consumption (e.g. flexitarianism, reducetarianism, Meatless Mondays), rather than elimination of meat consumption (e.g. vegetarianism, veganism) with the intent of creating a more acceptable message, …


Secondhand Communication Of Risk-Related Information: How Ideology And Relational Motives Affect Interpersonal Risk Communication, Daniel A. Chapman Jul 2016

Secondhand Communication Of Risk-Related Information: How Ideology And Relational Motives Affect Interpersonal Risk Communication, Daniel A. Chapman

Masters Theses

This research provides the first experimental investigation of the ways in which ideological and relational motives influence interpersonal risk communication. Drawing on the literatures in social and cognitive psychology, risk communication, and environmental decision making, this research examined whether individuals expressing concerns about tradeoffs between climate change adaptation and prevention were less likely to share climate change information with others if the information discussed adaptation policies. Participants were presented with an article about climate change framed as either relating to adaptation or prevention. Their willingness to share the article with others was measured, as well as their appraisals of how …