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Maria Ojala

@iaojala.bsky.social

2.3K followers 570 following 5 posts

Professor in Socio-Ecological Resilience, FRONT-program, University of Oulu. PhD and Docent in Psychology, Örebro University. Climate-change worry/anxiety, hope, trust, meaning, coping, climate-change engagement, critical emotional awareness, young people .. more

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Psychology 28%

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Maria Ojala @iaojala.bsky.social · Jul 7

New article together with Salla Veijonaho, lead author, and colleagues! This longitudinal study shows the importance of youth's meaning-focused coping for turning climate distress into climate engagement and for hindering these actions to lead to more distress! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

From Distress to Action? – A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study of Climate Change Distress, Pro-Environmental Behavior, and Coping Strategies among Finnish Adolescents.

Climate change is a major threat requiring active engagement from young people. However, adolescents can experience distress when confronting the prob…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Stylianos Syropoulos, Maria Ojala

Society for Personality and Social Psychology @spspnews.bsky.social · May 16

🌍Just Announced: Join us on June 3 for the next installment of our APA Interdivisional Webinar Series on Climate Justice and Psychology! Featured speaker Amanda Carrico will discuss climate change, migration, and well-being.

RSVP here: ow.ly/LeTm50VU7WR

A person holds a mound of dirt, topped with a lightbulb that contains a leaf.

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Reposted by Panu Pihkala, Maria Ojala

Christian Palacios Haugestad @cphaugestad.bsky.social · May 9

🧵✨ Excited to share insights from my recently published paper, “You can’t live in fear all the time”: Affective Dilemmas in Youth’s Discussions on Climate Change in Norway, in the British Journal of Social Psychology! Here’s a breakdown of our findings: doi.org/10.1111/bjso...

<em>British Journal of Social Psychology</em> | Wiley Online Library

Emotional responses to anthropogenic climate change have attracted significant attention. People negotiate emotions through culturally available frameworks. This study, based on 18 focus group discus...

doi.org

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Maria Ojala @iaojala.bsky.social · Jan 15

Do you conduct interdisciplinary sustainability research? Submit an abstract to “The 47th Association for Interdisciplinary Studies Conference: Shaping the Future in the Era of Polycrisis”, June 4-6, 2025, in beautiful Oulu, Finland. Deadline February 15. app.eventos.fi/ais-conferen...

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Reposted by Maria Ojala

The New York Times @nytimes.com · Jan 8

Scientists have found that fires across California and other parts of the American West have become faster-moving in recent decades.

California Wildfires Tear Through Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon: Live Updates

Tens of thousands were under mandatory evacuation orders as multiple blazes raged out of control. Gusty winds hindered firefighting efforts and raised fears that flames could reach more populated area...

www.nytimes.com

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Maria Ojala @iaojala.bsky.social · Dec 30

Interested in emotional perspectives on education for a sustainable future? Submit a presentation to this symposium on April 10-11! I am glad to have been invited as keynote speaker alongside Prof. Michalinos Zembylas who I have referred to a lot in my research!
emesergroup.wordpress.com/symposium/

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Maria Ojala @iaojala.bsky.social · Dec 7

Article about how young people cope with climate change! We identified three patterns of coping, of which combining meaning-focused coping with problem-focused coping seems to be the most constructive. First article to Amanda Rikner Martinsson’s doctoral thesis! 😊
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Patterns of climate-change coping among late adolescents: Differences in emotions concerning the future, moral responsibility, and climate-change engagement - Climatic Change

Young people both are and will be greatly affected by climate change, an insight which can trigger a range of stressful emotions concerning the future. How young people cope with climate change as a s...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Christian Pieter Hoffmann, Mike S. Schäfer, Maria Ojala

Viktoria Cologna @colognaviktoria.bsky.social · Nov 20

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Are climate scientists less trusted than scientists in general? 🤔🌍

Yes, we find evidence of a significant trust gap between climate scientists and scientists in general. 👇🧵 osf.io/preprints/os...

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Maria Ojala @iaojala.bsky.social · Nov 19

Thank you for creating this! Can you please add me to the list, thanks!

Reposted by Maria Ojala

Maria Vamvalis, PhD @mariavamvalis.bsky.social · Aug 6

I am grateful to the youth climate activists who contributed to this research. “We’re fighting for our lives”: Centering affective, collective and systemic approaches to climate justice education as a youth mental health imperative"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00345237231160090

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