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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Coping With Climate Change, Andrea Yj Mah
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
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, …
Ecological Considerations And Application Of Urban Tree Selection In Massachusetts, Ashley Mcelhinney
Ecological Considerations And Application Of Urban Tree Selection In Massachusetts, Ashley Mcelhinney
Masters Theses
Trees provide countless environmental, economic, and societal benefits to the urban environment, and may become increasingly important to maintaining environmental quality and human well-being in the face of increasing urbanization and climate change. However, trees in these urban areas are rapidly diminishing across the United States. Much of this loss can be prevented with proper planning and management, focused on selecting tree species that are both well-suited to the area’s growing conditions and able to survive the many stress factors in an urban setting. Choosing which tree species to plant in Massachusetts is especially challenging considering the lack of resources …
Assessing Adaptive Capacity Of Pioneer Valley Farmers, Angelica Carey
Assessing Adaptive Capacity Of Pioneer Valley Farmers, Angelica Carey
Masters Theses
This thesis explores Pioneer Valley farmers and their agricultural practices, knowledge and resources as they relate to climate change. Adaptive capacity is used throughout scientific literature, and often includes numerous components; for this thesis the measurement of farmers’ adaptive capacity would be assessed according to only three components: knowledge, past experiences and use of resources. Climate change and its impacts on agriculture have been studied but what is unclear is how prepared farmers are to deal with these impacts. Through literature review, survey development and recorded interviews, data was then analyzed both for quantitative and qualitative results to understand farmer’s …
Secondhand Communication Of Risk-Related Information: How Ideology And Relational Motives Affect Interpersonal Risk Communication, Daniel A. Chapman
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 …