Structural Configurations of Social Representations about Climate Change

The study looked at college students’ meaning-making of climate change, using the lens of Social Representation Theory. Participants were 130 undergraduate students of the University of Guam who were asked to answer a free association questionnaire in which they were to write the first three ideas that came to mind regarding their understanding and description of climate change, Abric’s (2012) Hierarchical Evocation Method (HEM) was used in analyzing the data. Central to the understanding of students is that climate change is synonymous with global warming. Peripheral apprehension of climate change include seeing climate change as modifications in weather, temperature, and season; associating the social object with calamities and disasters, environmental destructions, as well as the effects of these changes on human beings and animals; and the adjustments that human beings have to take on as a form of adaptation. Climate change is also socially understood as weather that has become extreme and unpredictable. Results have implications on the development and implementation of policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation.