Differentiating environmental concern in the context of psychological adaption to climate change

Differentiating three forms of environmental concern provides a nuanced view on their association with ecological stress and coping, and in turn depressive symptoms and pro-environmental behaviors. Results indicate that current public policy approaches that often focus on the natural environment when depicting or explaining the effects of climate change, may limit the effectiveness of interventions to those people who already show high concern for all living creatures, while failing to affect those motivated by egoistic or altruistic concern, increasing the risks associated with delaying climate change adaptation and the potential for large-scale negative mental health effects in our society.