Coping With Climate Anxiety: Efficacy Beliefs as a Form of Motivated Control

Climate anxiety has been found to correlate negatively with indicators of mental health. Thus, research is needed to shed light on effective coping strategies. This study investigates the role of efficacy beliefs in this context. It builds on a recent proposition according to which efficacy beliefs flow from climate anxiety as a form of motivated control to manage the emotional distress. It follows that climate anxiety and efficacy beliefs should be positively associated. The study tests the assumed positive association of climate anxiety and efficacy beliefs. It, furthermore, investigates whether efficacy beliefs flowing from climate anxiety are positively associated with mental wellbeing. A sample (N = 1000) representative of the population in Germany with regard to biological sex, age, household net income, education, and region will be used. The assumptions will be tested in a cross-sectional questionnaire study. Correlation and mediation analyses will be applied to test the hypotheses.