Existential threat as a challenge for individual and collective engagement: Climate change and the motivation to act

The global climate crisis can be perceived as a threat to existential human needs like control, certainty, and personal existence. These threat appraisals elicit an affective state of individual anxiety - one of the strongest motivators of individual pro-environmental behavior and collective policies and activism. Direct action against a threat is associated with other affective approach-motivated states that help to overcome anxiety: Recent findings show collective emotions of anger, guilt, and 'being moved' increase collective engagement but also show a positive relationship between positive activation and individual behavior. Climate threat furthermore promotes palliative responses, such as ingroup defense, identification with nature, or salient common humanity. Here, collective responses seem to reduce anxiety, and when combined with proenvironmental norms, even promote pro-environmental action.

Automated summary

The global climate crisis can be seen as a threat to personal existential needs, triggering individual anxiety and motivating pro-environmental behavior and policies. Emotional states like anger, guilt, and being moved have been found to increase collective engagement, while positive activation is positively related to individual behavior. Climate threat also leads to palliative responses such as ingroup defense, identification with nature, or common humanity, which reduce anxiety and promote pro-environmental action when combined with environmental norms.