Previous studies examining psychological distress associated with climate change have found cognitive, affective and behavioural influences. This distress, termed climate anxiety, is thought to be chronic in nature, and may result in long-lasting and significant negative impacts on mental health. The present study examined how climate anxiety may be impacting people’s frequency of pro-environment behaviours. To effectively measure participants’ behavioural frequency and preferences, we used a discrete choice experiment, which simulated a transport scenario where participants would have to make trade-offs between cost, time and eco-friendliness. A total of 256 participants (95 male, 161 female) completed the study. It was found that participants with moderate levels of climate anxiety had a higher frequency of pro-environment behaviours than participants with low or high levels of climate anxiety. Furthermore, participants with low or high levels of climate anxiety gave a higher preference for options that cost less or take less time. This evidence supports the hypothesis that moderate levels of climate anxiety may be optimal for pro-environmental behavioural response.

Previous studies have identified harmful social, physical, and mental impacts due to climate change. Anxiety due to climate change or "climate anxiety" may be an adaptive or reasonable response to a real threat; however, it may also be associated with considerable functional impairment of associated behaviours. In this study, we examined the relationship between climate anxiety and pro-environment behaviours, via an online discrete choice experiment, with 374 participants recruited from prolific academic and undergraduate university recruitment program. This experiment included our discrete choice measure of pro-environment behaviours and self-report survey items examining climate anxiety, general anxiety, death anxiety, and locus of control. We found that a moderate level of climate anxiety may be optimal for making pro-environmental choices, with this group having significantly more eco-friendly choices than participants in the low or high climate anxiety groups. We also examined the relationships between climate anxiety and three other psychological concepts, locus of control, general anxiety, and death anxiety, and found that these 3 factors were positively related to climate anxiety. These findings may indicate that some additional negative mental health outcomes are associated with high levels of climate anxiety. This study provides evidence for the use of discrete choice experiments when examining pro-environment behaviours, which may allow future studies to further examine various other trade-offs or factors such as the cost that participants are willing to "pay" for an eco-friendly option.

Previous studies have identified harmful social, physical and mental impacts due to climate change. Anxiety due to climate change or “climate anxiety” may be an adaptive reasonable response to a real threat; however, it may also be associated with considerable functional impairment of associated behaviours. In this study, we examined the relationship between climate anxiety and pro-environment financial decisions. Discrete choice experiments are required to make various choices with different attributes and levels, allowing us to understand the importance of different factors within these choices. We found that a moderate level of climate anxiety may be optimal for making pro-environmental choices, with this group having significantly higher consideration of sustainable investment options than participants in the low or high climate anxiety groups. We also found that, for participants with moderate levels of climate anxiety, there was no significant difference in the importance of financially focused attributes (risk, return on investment or length of investment) and sustainability, indicating it as a primary consideration in these decisions. Using a novel experimental approach to this problem, these findings are significant as they allow us to further examine choices to understand not only frequency of pro-environmental behaviours, but trade-offs participants made. This study provides evidence for the use of DCE when examining pro-environment behaviours, as they may be more robust to socially desirable response bias, compared to self-report survey measures.

Climate change poses a significant threat to sustainability and may result in psychological distress, such as climate anxiety, which may play a critical role in influencing pro-environment behaviours. This study aimed to investigate how indirect exposure to environmentally focused imagery may impact pro-environment behaviours and climate anxiety. A total of 283 participants completed our task, with findings indicating that participants who viewed negative environmental imagery had a significant reduction in preference for eco-friendly transportation options compared to participants in other conditions; we saw no significant difference in preference for these participants. When examining the effects of environmental imagery on climate anxiety, we found no significant differences in the level of climate anxiety based on priming condition, indicating that climate anxiety may be more robust to situational events than associated behaviours. This study identifies the potential maladaptive effects of negative climate imagery on pro-environment behaviours and highlights the trait-like nature of climate anxiety. These findings identify the potential for disengagement with behaviour due to negative messaging and imagery associated with climate change and extreme weather events. Future research should explore the long-term stability of climate anxiety and how different forms of exposure to climate change may influence climate anxiety and pro-environment behaviours.