Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
June 15, 2026
Summary:
Anxiety and worry about climate change have been associated with poorer mental health. We examined whether different climate beliefs, the cognitive component of climate anxiety, were associated with symptoms of psychological distress. We also tested whether political efficacy moderated the potential associations between climate beliefs and psychological distress, as perceptions of inadequate government response may amplify climate anxiety. We applied longitudinal data and cross-lagged panel network models in the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N = 34,318). Our results showed that (1) the association between climate beliefs and psychological distress was bidirectional, (2) belief in responsibility was most clearly associated with increased distress while associations between belief in inevitability and the distress symptoms were more mixed, and (3) those who perceived that individuals can affect political decisions seemed to be most vulnerable to the negative effects of the climate crisis on mental health.
Published in
International Journal of Psychology
Volume
Volume: 61
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.70221
ISSN
207594
Subjects
Notes
© 2026 The Author(s). International Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Union of Psychological Science.
Open Access
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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