Exploring climate change distress and associated psychological and behavioural responses among young women living in the UK: A grounded theory study

Abstract

Awareness of climate change impacts are growing around the world and can give rise to unpleasant psychological experiences. This includes painful perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, and is otherwise known as climate distress. Such distress is a natural and understandable response to recognising climate change. However, it requires that people find adaptive ways of coping with it that serve both human and planetary health. Certain demographic groups appear particularly vulnerable to experiencing climate distress, and these include young people and women. The present research aims to address a need for greater theoretical understandings of how young women are experiencing and responding to climate change awareness and climate distress, so that their coping and wellbeing may be better supported. Using a classic grounded theory methodology, 22 unstructured interviews were conducted with 19 university educated female participants aged 18-25 years. The result of this research is the development of a new theory that contributes to understanding the experiences and responses of young women to climate change, titled ‘becoming the change’. This theory reveals that perceptions of inadequate systemic responses to climate change by key societal actors are the dominant source of distress for this sample, and participants continually process this concern by engaging in climate action themselves, thus ‘becoming the change’. The degree to which participants are becoming the change was affected by six key psychosocial factors: growing awareness and knowledge about climate change, feelings of efficaciousness, interconnectedness, powerlessness and moral responsibility, as well as the ability to regulate intrapersonal experiences of climate change. This new theory contributes insights and understandings to a burgeoning field of research by identifying the principal response to climate distress among the young women interviewed and key factors that affect this. It also makes recommendations for future developments in research, practice and policy.

Date of Award	10 Sept 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Paul Chadwick (Supervisor), Elizabeth Marks (Supervisor) & Catherine Butler (Supervisor)