Date of Award

4-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Psychological Science

Program

Psychological Science (MS)

First Advisor/Chairperson

Joshua Carlson

Abstract

Recent research has shown that people with high trait anxiety fixate on images with higher levels of threat when in an anxious state. Climate change is a massive and timely problem with changes in the temperature of oceans and precipitation as well as warming of the Earth. These impacts can lead to climate anxiety. This project aimed to extend previous research regarding attentional bias and anxiety by assessing the relationship between attentional bias and climate change anxiety. Participants completed an eye-tracking task where they were asked to view climate change relevant images paired with climate irrelevant images. Participants then completed several questionnaires assessing their environmental values as well as their depressive and anxious symptoms. They also completed a questionnaire measuring their climate anxiety. It was hypothesized that, on average, participants would dwell more on climate change images compared to climate irrelevant images. It was further hypothesized that the degree of attentional capture by climate images would be linked to an individual’s level of climate anxiety such that individuals with high climate anxiety would dwell more on climate relevant images. There were no differences found between dwell times for climate relevant and climate irrelevant images, and no relationship was found between attentional bias to climate information and climate anxiety. The findings have implications in clinical settings for the development of new interventions or treatments for those experiencing climate anxiety. Other future research could include studies with different attentional bias tasks as well as different populations tested.

Access Type

Open Access

Additional Files
Abby Morley.pdf (35 kB)
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