Impact of Climate Change Risk Perception on Quality of Life: Moderating Role of Eco-Emotions and Pro Environmental Behaviors

Abstract

Climate change is becoming a serious issue in the world, caused by human effort, which leads to global warming and an increase in global temperature. Especially in the current situation of Pakistan, which has been deeply affected by negative consequences of climate change as seen in forest fires, flooding, and tsunami risks. These constant streams of perceived risks associated with climate change leads to experiencing variety of eco emotions including anxiety, depression, grief, and guilt associated with climate change which negatively impacts quality of life. The objective of the study is to explore the impact of climate change risk perception on eco-emotions and quality of life and the role of pro-environmental behavior. A cross-sectional study design was used for the present study and the target sample was selected through convenient sampling technique. In order to measure the study constructs, Hoggs eco-anxiety scale (Hogg et al., 2021). Eco-guilt questionnaire (Ágoston, C., 2022). Eco-grief questionnaire (Ágoston, C., 2022). Pro environmental behavior scale Larson, L. R., (2015). and WHO-QOOL scale (WHOQOL BREF2010) were administered. A scale was developed to study the perceived climate change risk perception among people. Factor analysis was conducted to find the underlying factor structure, it also met the requirement of sample size as the measurement was on 5-point likert scale (Soelar, & Zulkifli,2012) and minimum value of corrected item total correlation of moat of the items was above .23 (Soelar, & Zulkifli,2012) which identified four factors i.e., knowledge, attitude, cause, and effect. Correlation analysis, Multiple regression analysis, and t-test were computed for hypothesis testing. Results indicate that climate change risk perception has a significant positive relationship with pro-environmental behavior and quality of life and a significant negative relationship with eco-emotions. viii Results also show that climate change risk perception and pro environmental behaviors positively whereas eco-emotion negatively predicts quality of life. Furthermore, the moderating role of eco-emotions as well as pro-environmental behaviors between climate change risk perception and quality of life was also established. Moreover, study also provided group differences with respect to study variables as discussed in the study. The present study provides insight in factors associated with climate change including risk perception, eco-emotions, pro-environmental behavior impacting quality of life.