Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Journal

Coping can help people deal with the imminent and distant effects of climate change and encourage people to take the necessary pro-environmental behaviors. The present research examines whether use of specific coping strategies depending on construal level can significantly affect one’s pro-environmental intentions. We found that inducing a match between climate change construal and type of coping strategy significantly predicted belief in climate change, while creating a mismatched condition did not. These findings aim to illuminate the relationship between coping strategy and level of construal, and how facilitating a greater match between them may promote more successful psychological adaptation.