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Social scientists have an essential role in examining the human aspects of climate change. Individual differences can influence how one responds to issues related to climate change. The present study aims at understanding the psychological factors that predict attitude towards climate change among youth. A survey on personality and attitude towards climate change was completed by 200 young adults in the age group 18 to 25 years. Personality was assessed in terms of HEXACO personality factors. Regression analysis that was used to analyze the data revealed that the personality traits namely honesty-humility and openness to experience positively predicted climate change beliefs. Climate change intentions were positively predicted by honesty-humility, extraversion, and negatively predicted by agreeableness and conscientiousness. The findings of the study have implications for sensitizing youth towards climate change.
Keywords: personality factors, honesty-humility, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness
Climate change generally refers to variability in climate and seasonal changes over a span of time, which impacts land, water, and atmosphere. The crucial factor that contributes to the high variation in climate is the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Various technology advancements and earth-orbiting satellites provide different kinds of information on climate and other components of the planet. The annual and seasonal report on air temperature in India between 1881 and 2001 shows significant warming up to 0.68 degrees (Lal, 2003). Moreover, the risk index release by COP23 reports India to be a vulnerable country due to climate change (Sarkar, 2017). In 2016, the heat waves reported in South Asia and a high temperature of 51 degrees Celsius in Rajasthan lead to the death of 1000 people because of dehydration and hyperthermia (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, 2016). This warming effect is attributed to several factors like deforestation, excessive livestock farming, and burning of coal, oil, which leads to the release of carbon dioxide contributing to the drastic change in the climate. The nitrogen-based fertilizers and fluorinated gases used in farming lead to warming, which is comparatively higher than the effect of Co2.
Climate change affects physical health in numerous ways. Particularly, water and food borne diseases are widely prevalent due to climate change (as cited in Hayes et al., 2018). There is also a rise in vector-borne diseases, tick-borne encephalitis, Lyme disease, and malaria...