Perception of Global Warming in the Context of Studying the Psychology of Environmental Safety

Abstract

The article examines the psychological approach to the phenomenon of environmental safety, including the example of students’ perception (n = 557) of a specific environmental problem—global warming. Environmental safety is understood as a human sense of its security in interaction with the natural environment, formed on the basis of the assessment of the environment as not threatening with destructive environmental impacts, as well as the search for resources to confront the emerging dangers of a natural-tech nature. Factor analysis method justified environmental safety structure presented by the following components: cognitive (representations of nature and opportunities to influence environmental problems), affective (feeling defenseless in the face of environmental threats), value-oriented (environmental values and their relationship with values in other life spheres) and behavioral (possible behavioral strategies to solve conservation problems). The study found an average level of students’ concerns about global environmental issues. With the importance of environmental values, many of them have insufficient levels of cognitive and behavioral components of environmental safety. Attitudes to climate change are linked to perceptions of other global environmental problems, but are inferior to a number of them, such as waste disposal, radioactive contamination, and environment-related diseases. At the same time, students with a higher level of concern about climate warming demonstrate a stronger desire to adhere to the rules of pro-environmental behavior in their daily behavior.