From Climate Emotions to Affective-Discursive Practices: A Critical Social Psychological Approach to Climate Change Issues
This review article challenges the traditional understanding of climate emotions in social psychology. Instead of measuring emotions as individual states, we propose a critical, affective-discursive approach. Drawing on empirical interview studies from the Nordics, article shows how climate emotions are negotiated socially, dilemmatically, and ideologically in everyday life. We illustrate how individuals mobilize affect in discussions to protect their well-being from eco-anxiety or to externalize responsibility for climate action.
Forfatter
Christian A. Palacios Haugestad
Medforfattere
Helenor Tormis
Tidskrift
Social and Personality Psychology Compass / Wiley
Abstract
As a politically contested and emotionally loaded topic, climate change presents a significant challenge for social psychological research. The field's dominant social-cognitive paradigm has tended to conceptualise climate-related emotions as individual, measurable constructs, often overlooking the broader social and contextual nuances that shape emotional experiences. In contrast, we propose an affective-discursive approach rooted in critical psychological perspectives, which offers a nuanced framework for understanding the complexities of climate emotions. Drawing on two empirical studies based on interview material from Nordic contexts, we demonstrate how this approach can illuminate the social, dilemmatic, and ideological nature of climate emotions, illustrating how individuals negotiate and construct their feelings within a broader environmentalist context. While acknowledging the limitations of both mainstream and affective-discursive approaches, we advocate future critical psychological research that prioritises social justice and power in climate change questions. By approaching affect as part of discursive meaning-making processes, this article provides a novel perspective on climate emotions, understood as contextually situated practices with specific interactional, social, and political implications.