Decoding public’s real-time emotional and cognitive responses to the changing climate on social media

Abstract

The existing research on the associations between climate change-related events and mental well-being outcomes warrants several gaps. These studies either used a mono approach such as cross-sectional surveys or focused on clinical mental health outcomes. Moreover, the underlying mechanism channelling changing climate and real-time emotional well-being as well as their pro-environmental action were seldom studied. This study aimed to address these gaps by integrating multiple data sources, including social media posts about climate change on Weibo (n = 76,514), regional meteorological data (n(records) = 216,476), and regional vulnerability data in China. This study proposed and tested a novel mechanism linking meteorological factors and emotional well-being through three cognitive responses (thinking styles, social affiliations, and somatosensory experiences), and explored their relationships with individuals’ pro-environmental tendencies. Additionally, this study examined the moderating role of regional vulnerability and seasonal effects in the impact of climate change on public emotional well-being. The results revealed that extreme hot days and hotter temperatures were associated with more negative emotional well-being and lower pro-environmental tendencies and that these effects were mediated by individuals’ analytical-intuitive thinking style, social affiliations, and somatosensory experiences and moderated by seasons and regional population density. The implications of these findings for climate change communication and intervention were discussed, emphasizing the role of cognitive responses of the public to enhance coping abilities for climate change and promote pro-environmental behaviours.