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Two Emotional Roots of Youths' Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations: Eco-Anxiety and Empathy toward Animals

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Title: Two Emotional Roots of Youths' Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations: Eco-Anxiety and Empathy toward Animals
Language: English
Authors: Pascal Mallet (ORCID 0000-0002-5709-9756), Emmanuelle Vignoli (ORCID 0000-0003-1036-4548)
Source: Journal of Career Development. 2025 52(6):696-718.
Availability: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 23
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Elementary Education
Grade 3
Primary Education
Grade 4
Intermediate Grades
Grade 5
Middle Schools
Grade 6
Grade 7
Junior High Schools
Secondary Education
Grade 8
Grade 9
High Schools
Descriptors: Career Choice, Occupational Aspiration, Emotional Response, Anxiety, Ecology, Empathy, Animals, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8, Grade 9, Age Differences, Gender Differences, Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students, Junior High School Students, Conservation (Environment)
Geographic Terms: France
DOI: 10.1177/08948453251382178
ISSN: 0894-8453
1556-0856
Abstract: The present study examined the role of eco-emotions in youths' career development. We hypothesized that eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals account for children's and adolescents' earth-friendly career aspirations (EFCAs). Relying on focus groups of third-to-ninth-grade French students, we used a thematic analysis to explore their view of careers that respect the earth. The main themes uncovered were used to construct a self-report EFCA scale. French third-to-ninth graders (N = 587, 51% girls) from middle-to-high socio-economic levels participated in a survey assessing EFCA, eco-anxiety, and empathetic attitudes toward animals. The results showed that these two emotions made independent contributions to EFCAs. The EFCAs were lower in early adolescents than in children, and higher in girls than in boys. We propose that eco-emotions are adaptive and function as a "watchtower" by enhancing youths' earth-friendly plans for their adult life. We discuss the relevance of taking EFCAs and eco-emotions into account in career counseling.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1490842
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0189287604;[2yf6]01dec.25;2025Nov17.01:54;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0189287604-1">Two Emotional Roots of Youths' Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations: Eco-Anxiety and Empathy Toward Animals </title> <p>The present study examined the role of eco-emotions in youths' career development. We hypothesized that eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals account for children's and adolescents' earth-friendly career aspirations (EFCAs). Relying on focus groups of third-to-ninth-grade French students, we used a thematic analysis to explore their view of careers that respect the earth. The main themes uncovered were used to construct a self-report EFCA scale. French third-to-ninth graders (N = 587, 51% girls) from middle-to-high socio-economic levels participated in a survey assessing EFCA, eco-anxiety, and empathetic attitudes toward animals. The results showed that these two emotions made independent contributions to EFCAs. The EFCAs were lower in early adolescents than in children, and higher in girls than in boys. We propose that eco-emotions are adaptive and function as a "watchtower" by enhancing youths' earth-friendly plans for their adult life. We discuss the relevance of taking EFCAs and eco-emotions into account in career counseling.</p> <p>Keywords: eco-anxiety; empathy toward animals; career aspirations; environmental crisis; childhood and adolescence</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Although currently still apparently marginal, some students who have worked hard and graduated experience doubts and guilt about the education they received because they perceive that they were trained for jobs that have an adverse impact on the environment. For example, at the 2022 award ceremony of the French school Agroparitech, which trains agricultural engineers, a small minority of the graduates caused a scandal saying they did not want to pretend to be proud and deserving recipients of a diploma awarded for successful completion of a curriculum that induces participation in current ecological devastations. They expressed a mixture of emotions including disillusionment, sadness, and anger about the training they had received ([<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref1">60</reflink>]). This emotional reaction echoes youth movements in favor of environmental causes, and it raises the question of whether it would be possible to anticipate this kind of reaction by listening to youths' intentions to prepare for a career that would not be damaging to the planet.</p> <p>Such occupational aspirations are reflected in emerging career-guidance policies being debated in international forums. For example, the European Education and Training Expert Panel of the European Commission ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref2">18</reflink>]) promotes the "green guidance approach" for students, which "deals with the choice of a career and jobs that minimize environmental harm and that heighten awareness of the importance of green careers." (p. 54). This recommendation can be viewed as relevant for two reasons. First, scientific predictions regarding the consequences of global climate change on the future of humanity and the deterioration of living conditions, including the labor market in many parts of the world (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref3">40</reflink>]). Second, working in an environment that is congruent with one's personal convictions has various positive outcomes ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref4">39</reflink>]), which might make it unlikely to find the kind of unpleasant emotional reaction we illustrated above with the protest of newly graduated engineers. Accordingly, if a portion of every new generation intends to pursue an earth-friendly career, it would be wise for practitioners to pay attention to the emotions youths experience about life on earth and the connections of those emotions with their career aspirations.</p> <p>Here, we explore the relationships between two kinds of emotion that elementary school and junior-high school students experience in daily life situations, namely eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals, and their earth-friendly career aspirations (EFCAs). Before examining this issue using a questionnaire about these two emotions and EFCAs, we used focus groups to analyze how youths in this age range perceive earth-friendly careers. This enabled us to devise a self-report questionnaire to assess this kind of career aspiration.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-3">Emotions Related to Environmental Threats Might Impact the Way Youths Envision Their Future C...</hd> <p>In many parts of the world, when elementary school children and adolescents think about the future, they are likely to consider climate change and ecological crises, and their consequences on living beings (for an overview, see [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref5">45</reflink>]). Indeed, environmental degradation and its anthropogenic factors have been thoroughly documented by the scientific community, widely diffused in the mass-media, and learned in classrooms in accordance with the climate agreement signed at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21), held in Paris (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref6">71</reflink>]). Children and adolescents in Western countries are informed about the environmental crisis through interaction with friends and family ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref7">57</reflink>]), so many of them know that the environmental crisis is expected to disturb many aspects of our life, including the job market and working conditions. They also know that the fundamental cause of the crisis could be mitigated by changes in human behaviors ([<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref8">73</reflink>]). In line with this, empirical studies have acknowledged that the environmental crisis is a matter of emotional concern for a significant part of the world's youth. In Western Europe, for example, three quarters of the youths questioned perceived climate change as a very big or fairly big problem ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref9">15</reflink>]). [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref10">35</reflink>] reported that youth are not only afraid of global warming, but also of the consequences of the ecological crisis.</p> <p>Consequently, environmental disturbances and their consequences can be assumed to be part of the cognitive and emotional backdrop against which the new millennium's children and adolescents plan their education and subsequent career. It therefore seems worthwhile to address this matter during career counseling with youths, while being receptive to their worries and listening to their possible aspirations regarding entering and pursuing a career that respects the planet. As [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref11">29</reflink>] observed, "Self-reflection, central to the counseling processes of career construction and life design ([<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref12">62</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref13">63</reflink>]), implicates a key role for emotion. This role suggests that emotion benefits rather than blocks self-construction ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref14">27</reflink>]) whereby people plan for, decide about, enter, adjust to, and transition from work and other life roles with intentionality." (p. 300). EFCAs, as a motivational construct, could serve as a gateway for broadening our understanding of children's and adolescents' career and life plans, by placing more attention on emotions.</p> <p>[<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref15">29</reflink>] observed that when emotion was included in career research, its disturbing effect was often emphasized. The negative effects of emotion do not preclude them from fulfilling a constructive function. For example, adolescents' hope about their future is linked to their career adaptability ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref16">25</reflink>]) and career exploration ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref17">37</reflink>]). Similarly, secure adolescent attachment to parents enhances adjustment to career transitions ([<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref18">65</reflink>]). [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref19">76</reflink>] observed that emotional states shared by adolescents and their parents play a major role in the career plans they construct together. Interestingly, even "negative emotions" may have a positive effect on career development (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref20">16</reflink>]).</p> <p>In accordance with such studies, most theoreticians agree that "emotion plays a vital role in career development from childhood through adulthood" ([<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref21">56</reflink>], p. 168). [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref22">29</reflink>] observation was not specific to youth when he said that "today's turbulent world of globalization, burgeoning information technology, and economic collapse leaves people experiencing, expressing, and endeavoring to manage a range of emotions as they construct their work careers and design their lives." (p. 297). Nevertheless, anticipating the future of one's life and career can be especially challenging for newcomers. When considering what their adult life will be, youths face considerable uncertainty pertaining to globalization, accelerating changes in the working world ([<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref23">42</reflink>]), and the evolution of our natural living conditions on earth ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref24">40</reflink>]). Because the environmental crisis is part of this uncertainty, it seems relevant to pay attention to the emotions elicited in youths by the environmental crisis—such as fear, grief, sadness, shame, and guilt ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref25">35</reflink>])—since these emotions could influence their vocational behavior.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-4">The Watchtower Function of Youths' Emotions About Life on Earth</hd> <p>One of the functional bases of emotion is action-readiness, which prepares the individual for movement or action. It is therefore not surprising that emotions influence behavior, cognition, and motivation ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref26">21</reflink>]). Evolutionary research has identified "anticipatory emotions" ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref27">53</reflink>]), which are adaptive since they help individuals foresee future threats and prepare appropriate behavioral responses. Eco-emotions, or "earth-emotions" ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref28">1</reflink>]), as emotional characteristics aroused by the perception of an environmental disorder, could be such anticipatory emotions. By reminding us the vulnerability of every living creature, eco-emotions might enhance youths' awareness that their future is highly dependent upon the natural environment.</p> <p>However, to be adaptive, emotions have to lead individuals to find an efficient way to cope with them ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref29">19</reflink>]). We propose that at least some eco-emotions fulfill what could be called a "watchtower function," not only by alerting youths about risks for their future life and career, but also by making them think about preparing for ways to prevent the dangers. Research on adults has revealed that eco-emotions are among the most powerful determinants of pro-environmental behaviors and attitudes ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref30">8</reflink>]). Although there is less empirical research regarding youths, it is in accordance with adult research. For example, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref31">55</reflink>] showed that doing something concrete to curb global warming (e.g., riding a bike instead of riding in a car) was an efficient coping strategy for adolescents. This finding is in accordance with [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref32">2</reflink>] theoretical analysis suggesting that youths' engagement in climate change enhances their belief in their own self-efficacy, and their empowerment drives away their prior demoralizing feelings. Trying to plan a career that respects the planet, which is a more abstract activity, could be part of this coping strategy.</p> <p>From a practical point of view, this entails including factors that far exceed strict career-development issues when youths are preparing their school-to-work transition and imagining their future career. For example, youths could have doubts about having a career in winter sports given the decrease in snow in the winter, but they could also be concerned about having a lifelong career in the mining industry that has deleterious effects on the earth. This enlargement of career-development exploration can be seen as a "meaning-focused strategy," which promotes positive feelings such as hope ([<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref33">19</reflink>]). However, the association between eco-emotions and youths' EFCAs remains unexplored. Identifying what specific kinds of emotion are related to youths' EFCAs could provide counselors with avenues for exploring the emotional resources that support youths' career aspirations.</p> <p>Eco-anxiety is one of the most widely studied eco-emotions. As a kind of anxiety, eco-anxiety is an aversive reaction characterized by the fear that something negative might happen ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref34">53</reflink>]). But as [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref35">13</reflink>] observed in their review, eco-anxiety does not refer only to fear but also to other emotions. For example, when adults rated how they felt when they thought about climate change on nine emotional items (e.g., afraid, angry, sad), all items loaded on the same factor ([<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref36">66</reflink>]). From an evolutionary point of view, the different emotional reactions elicited by the same ecological threats (e.g., climate change, pollution, biodiversity, lack of resources) can be assumed to be similarly aimed at lessening the threat by various means (e.g., fight or flight) ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref37">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>Several authors view eco-anxiety as a mental-health disorder, and accordingly they have devised scales targeting anxiety-disorder symptoms such as nightmares about climate change (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref38">12</reflink>]). In accordance with research on the association between eco-emotions and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors ([<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref39">8</reflink>]), scholars have nevertheless found that eco-anxiety is a rational response to the deteriorating state of the planet (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref40">72</reflink>]), and fosters efficient problem-solving attitudes (for a review, see [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref41">59</reflink>]). We suggest that eco-anxiety enhances youths' exploration of work activities that respect the planet, and accordingly we hypothesized that EFCAs and eco-anxiety would be associated.</p> <p>Another emotion that could similarly fulfill the hypothetical watchtower function through its association with EFCAs is empathy toward animals. This emotion can be seen as part of "biophilia," a term first coined by [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref42">23</reflink>] as the innate human propensity to connect with nature and more specifically to affiliate with living creatures of other species. [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref43">9</reflink>] suggested that this tendency is due to our evolutionary history, since the human mind evolved in natural environments along with numerous other species. Irrespective of these evolutionary speculations, humans experience empathy toward living beings, in general conspecifics, from their first year of life, which means (a) that they are able to share their emotional states, (b) that through this emotional sharing they adopt others' subjective perspectives, and (c) that they respond emotionally in a way congruent with their perceived welfare ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref44">17</reflink>]). In their pioneering work on children's empathy, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref45">77</reflink>] observed that this emotional concern can be aroused by the perception of the suffering of another living being from the same or another species.</p> <p>Indeed, in addition to the empathy children and adolescents experience toward their conspecifics, they feel empathy toward animals, whether they be pets or teddy bears, those that abound in stories for children, or those of the riding school, etc. The rich animal kingdom that lives in the mind of youths, although rarely studied by psychologists, reflects youths' strong and long-standing empathy felt toward them (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref46">78</reflink>]). Children and adolescents view pets as friends, and expect to receive emotional support from them ([<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref47">50</reflink>]). Accordingly, elementary school children have reported greater positive affect (e.g., comfortable, proud, cheerful) in stressing situations when they were observed in the presence of their pet dog as compared to children observed without their pet dog ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref48">43</reflink>]).</p> <p>Moreover, children's empathetic attitudes toward animals are associated to their belief in animal cognition and sentience ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref49">31</reflink>]), a belief assumed to be at the core of people's moral concerns about animal welfare ([<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref50">51</reflink>]). In line with this, youths who grow up with pets at home have reported more positive attitudes toward animals throughout their lives ([<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref51">67</reflink>]), and a higher propensity to protect animals and to act in favor of safeguarding biodiversity ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref52">3</reflink>]), which is a typical pro-environment attitude. Overall, children's socio-emotional experiences of animals have long-lasting effects on their attitudes, emotions, and behavior toward animals.</p> <p>As stated above, empathy toward animals is an emotional concern aroused by the direct perception of a suffering animal, but it is also a process that causes abstract ideas about the status of animals to be transformed into sensitivity to the emotions and other inner states experienced whenever the welfare of animals becomes a matter of concern ([<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref53">61</reflink>]). In the same vein, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref54">49</reflink>] contended that "understanding the attitudes that younger generations have toward animals may help us to understand the sustainability of future societies, as our attitudes toward animals are central in the sustainability debate." (p. 88). Finally, since youths' empathetic moral attitudes toward animals are deeply rooted in their socioemotional ontogenesis, these attitudes might be one of the most reliable drives of their concern about the future of our natural environment. Thus, we hypothesized that it makes them more sensitive to broader environmental issues and enhances their EFCA. Although this kind of empathetic attitude concerning the welfare and protection of animals has especially been studied among adults (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref55">34</reflink>]), research on children's compassion toward animals and their beliefs in animal cognition and sentience suggests that elementary school children are able to experience this kind of empathetic attitude toward animals ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref56">31</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our study focused on children and adolescents, but the case of veterinary students, who are more emerging adults than adolescents, illustrates the process we are hypothesizing here. Their empathetic attitudes toward animal use has been shown to predict their career aspirations ([<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref57">52</reflink>]). For example, those more concerned with animal use had higher aspirations to work toward the conservation of wild animals. The effect of this animal-welfare empathy on career aspirations may extend beyond the veterinary domain by supporting youths' aspirations for a career that respects the planet.</p> <p>To summarize, since empathetic attitudes toward animal welfare consist of compassion for animals perceived as suffering due to certain human activities, such attitudes could converge with eco-anxiety in prompting youths to aspire to a career that respects the earth. If these two kinds of emotions—both of which express a concern for the preservation of life—were empirically found to be associated with EFCA, they could be viewed as paths to examine, with youths, the emotional context of their career development exploration.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-5">A New Construct to Examine How Youths Cope with Eco-Emotions Through Career Exploration</hd> <p>We wondered whether aspiring to embark on a career that respects the earth is part of the existing motivational constructs used in vocational psychology (for an overview on the motivational processes involved in vocational development, see [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref58">74</reflink>]). Regarding vocational interests, the six broad domains that [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref59">39</reflink>] disentangled were derived from technical and college-level fields of study, and reflect different areas of the working world. In contrast, EFCAs are not focused on any area of the academic or working worlds, and therefore cannot be viewed as a vocational or career interest.</p> <p>Assessing career aspirations is another useful way to account for youths' vocational behavior. In general, authors agree that this motivational construct refers to the expressed intention to have a job in a certain occupational field or a job characterized by specific features (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref60">36</reflink>]). Teenage career aspirations in combination with educational attainments are among the best predictors of the occupational choices made by young people in adulthood, and they mediate the effects of socioeconomic background factors ([<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref61">64</reflink>]). As far as we know, aspirations for a career that respects the planet have not been studied, so we found it relevant to propose EFCA as new construct.</p> <p>Although pro-environmental attitudes have been frequently measured (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref62">75</reflink>]), there has been no attempt to study youths' aspirations about a career that would not jeopardize our natural environment. It therefore appears necessary to create EFCA as a new career-aspiration construct. We propose to see these aspirations as standing at the crossroads of multiple influences, among which specific emotions play a significant role.</p> <p>In addition, the strength of EFCAs can be viewed as varying with age throughout late childhood and early adolescence since this is a critical period for career exploration ([<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref63">68</reflink>]) with significant developmental changes in vocational interests and other aspects of vocational maturation (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref64">58</reflink>]). We were interested in finding out whether EFCA increases as students go from grade to grade during the late elementary and junior high school years, since such an increase would provide an argument in favor of guiding youths in exploring curriculum choices and careers that could meet those aspirations.</p> <p>During the elementary-school age and early adolescence when students envision their future career, they increasingly take into account "the barriers and opportunities in their environment" ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref65">30</reflink>], p. 394). More specifically, the prevalence of fantasy-based career aspirations decreases between the ages of eight and fourteen, leaving room for more realistic ones ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref66">14</reflink>]), which may include EFCAs. Nevertheless, at least for some students, EFCAs could be viewed as somewhat idealistic. Children's and adolescents' career aspirations depend upon the settings in which they evolve. Those living in underprivileged areas have more pessimistic career aspirations ([<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref67">70</reflink>]). We reasoned that students from disadvantaged backgrounds might be more focused on simply having a job and less likely to place more and more importance on EFCAs as they grow older. If an increase were to be expected, it would be more likely to occur in students with a middle-to-high social economic background, so here, we focused our exploratory study on these youths.</p> <p>Consistent research has found that both eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals are stronger in females than males (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref68">34</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref69">38</reflink>]). If, eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals enhance EFCAs, these gender differences can be assumed to have impact on this variable. We also expected girls to report higher EFCAs because we deemed these aspirations to be close to pro-environmental attitudes, which are stronger in women than in men (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref70">79</reflink>]). Hypothesizing this gender difference in youths is consistent with the facts that educational and career choices are influenced by gender stereotypes, and that early adolescence is a critical period in this respect ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref71">26</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-6">The Present Study</hd> <p>The present study focuses on the relationships between two kinds of emotion that express a concern for the preservation of life, and French youths' EFCAs. Our first goal was to test the hypothesis that these career aspirations are accounted for by youths' experiences of eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals (hypothesis 1). Using a developmental ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref72">30</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref73">68</reflink>]) and evolutionary ([<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref74">21</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref75">22</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref76">53</reflink>]) framework, we tested a second hypothesis, according to which, among youths with a middle-to-high socio-economic background, EFCAs are stronger in adolescence than during the elementary school years, and increase during early adolescence (hypothesis 2). Our third hypothesis was that girls as compared to boys would report stronger EFCAs (hypothesis 3).</p> <p>The design of the research includes a qualitative component and a quantitative component. The qualitative work was devised to inform the development of the EFCA scale, and the quantitative work tested its associations with emotions, age, and gender. As a first step, which involved two focus groups, we asked children and adolescents about their views on careers that respect the planet; we then carried out a thematic analysis of their responses in order to design self-report items enabling the assessment of EFCAs in third-to-ninth graders. In France, third, fourth, and fifth graders are in elementary school, and the next four grades are in junior high school. As a second step, we asked the students of a third-grade class to individually check the clarity of the newly designed items and those of a French version of [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref77">34</reflink>] Animal Attitude Scale (AAS-10). As a third step, in order to test our three hypotheses, we asked a larger sample of third-to-ninth graders to respond on these two scales and the Basic Eco-Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (BEASCA, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref78">48</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-7">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189287604-8">Ethical Approval, Participants, and Procedure</hd> <p>The study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the University of Paris Nanterre (notification number 2022-07-03). It is part of a larger research project, including data from other self-reports and qualitative interviews. The purpose of the larger study was to increase our knowledge about children's and adolescents' perception of the future of the planet, their own future, and the relationships between humans and other animal species. It was especially intended to know whether their social-emotional experiences with family members, friends, and pets account for this perception. The EFCA scale was developed specifically for the present study, whereas the scales measuring eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals were also relevant for the larger study. The data collected with the EFCA scale are used exclusively for the present study, and the data collected with the other scales are devoted to be used in the larger study. For the participants of the present study, informed consent was obtained prior to data collection from the participants and their parents. The children, the adolescents, their parents, and the school staff members were told that the study was on children's and adolescents' perception of their own future and the future of the planet.</p> <p>For data collection via focus groups, we asked the elementary school teachers and high school staff members to invite pupils who they thought would be comfortable participating in such collective interviews. One week before data collection, we meet the children and parents, to explain the purpose of the study and inform them that participants were expected to discuss this purpose with other children or adolescents, under the supervision of one of us (first author). For the students who performed the clarity-checking task individually or those who filled out the self-report questionnaire in a class setting, the students and their parents were asked to participate by the school staff and teachers, after we explained the aims of the study and how we planned to carry out the data collection. Students and parents were assured of the confidentiality of the participants' answers.</p> <p>Since we were intended to study children and adolescents belonging to middle-to-high socio-economic backgrounds, we recruited our participants via purposive sampling. All the participants attended schools in downtown Paris, where the housing cost is high. Since French public schools accommodate children or adolescents who live within the school's attendance boundary, our participants could be considered as living in a neighborhood characterized by a middle-to-high socio-economic level. We chose the schools by analyzing socio-economic maps of the Parisian population (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref79">10</reflink>]). We sent the heads of schools an email explaining the aims and methods of the study, and we called them by phone to obtain a meeting with them and their staffs. The elementary schools and high-schools were located in the same neighborhood.</p> <p>At the first step of the study, six elementary school students and eight junior high school students participated in the focus-group discussions. The six elementary school participants were a boy and a girl of third, fourth, or fifth grade with an average age of 9.71 years. The eight high school students were a boy and a girl of the sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth grades with an average age of 13.17 years. The boy and the girl from the same grade were familiar classmates. The focus group sessions took place in an available room of the elementary or high school, and were led by a PhD researcher experienced in the focus-group procedure (first author). The two group discussions were recorded.</p> <p>Relying on the results of the thematic analysis, a team of two elementary school teachers and two junior-high-school teachers devised the items. They were supervised by the senior researcher who conducted the focus groups (first author). Since they were familiar with the language and cognitive abilities of students in the age range studied, the teachers were told to pay careful attention to item wording so that it would be accessible to third-grade students and still appropriate for junior-high-school students.</p> <p>As the second step of the study, the resulting items and the French version items from [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref80">34</reflink>] AAS-10 were submitted to the individual judgment of 27 third-grade pupils (12 boys and 15 girls, M<subs>age</subs> = 8.8, SD = 0.5). The purpose of this was to check that each item was easily understood by the youngest participants in the study. The participants in this second step, which took place in an available room of another elementary school, were in the same class. Each item was presented on a laptop computer and they had to read each one aloud. They were told to mention anything that could be ambiguous or unclear in the sentence, and if not to say "C'est clair" (It's clear). If a child judged that an item was unclear, we asked her or him to explain what she or he didn't understood.</p> <p>As the third step, 587 French students (51% girls) from middle-to-high socio-economic levels participated in the questionnaire survey, which took place in the classroom. For these self-report scales, the participants gave their ratings on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (<emph>does not describe me at all</emph>) to 5 (<emph>definitely describes me</emph>). They attended two elementary schools and one high school, which were different from the schools in the first two steps of this study. There were 34 boys and 35 girls in third grade, 31 boys and 53 girls in fourth grade, 38 boys and 40 girls in fifth grade, 50 boys and 57 girls in sixth grade, 47 boys and 54 girls in seventh grade, 41 boys and 27 girls in eighth grade, and 46 boys and 34 girls in ninth grade. Their mean ages (and SD) in years were 8.91 (0.42) for the third graders, 9.86 (0.31) for the fourth graders, 10.90 (0.28) for the fifth graders, 11.50 (0.28) for the sixth graders, 12.55 (0.40) for the seventh graders, 13.70 (0.29) for the eighth graders, and 14.68 (0.27) for the ninth graders. There was no significant gender-by-grade effect on age.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-9">Researcher Perspectives</hd> <p>As the principal and co-principal investigators of the present study (first and second authors, respectively), we hold a PhD degree in psychology, we were trained in quantitative and qualitative methods, we are university scholars with more than twenty years' experience teaching these methods to counseling students (first author) and vocational psychology students (second authors), and we used these methods in different research areas, especially those related to emotion. Regarding our value and personal positioning about the main topic of the present study, namely youths' EFCAs, we are not committed activists on issues of planet protection, but we acknowledge to be concerned about environmental problems. This concern was part of the motivations that lead us to consider that EFCAs are worthy of careful academic research, and to study this kind of aspirations.</p> <p>Regarding specifically the focus groups, they were moderated by the first author, who paid special attention not to influence participants, since as an adult male he could be perceived by children and adolescents as dominant ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref81">4</reflink>]). Accordingly, the principal investigator developed a series of open-ended questions that were intended to let the children and adolescents speak openly and without restriction about their perception of earth-friendly careers. Furthermore, the focus groups were moderated (by first author) in a neo-Piagetian perspective, which emphasizes mutual respect and reciprocity in group discussions as a democratic way to promote collaborative reasoning, insight and creativity ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref82">54</reflink>]). Relying on the open-ended questions, the moderator encouraged thought and collaborative reasoning, without expressing moral judgment or exerting any pressure on the participants. The thematic analysis was carried out by a team composed of the first author and two Master's degree students. These students were trained in counseling psychology, including qualitative research. Their personal perspectives reflected awareness about climate change and other environmental issues, but they were not committed environmentalists.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-10">Data Collection and Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189287604-11">Focus Group Discussions and Thematic Analysis</hd> <p>Our aim was to explore what a career that respects the earth means for students in the late elementary-school and junior-high-school grades. Two small samples of children or young adolescents were interviewed by fist author. Each group discussion began with an explanation of the process that would be followed and a request for questions. To open the discussion, participants were asked the following question: "What does it mean for you to get a job that doesn't harm nature?" After participants had responded, they were asked three other open-ended questions to get the discussion back on track, following this interview guide: (a) "What allow us to say that a particular job is respectful of nature?" (b) "Did you ever hear about jobs that are environment-friendly and jobs that are not? If so, why are some jobs regarded as environment-friendly, while others are not?" (c) "Did you ever search for information about what makes a job environment-friendly? If so, what did you learn?"</p> <p>The verbal data we obtained using focus groups were transcribed in written form so that a thematic analysis could be conducted, following the [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref83">6</reflink>] six-phase guideline and the further guidance provided by [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref84">7</reflink>]. The aim was to identify themes that were closely linked to the data. This type of inductive analysis is considered more appropriate for exploring a new field than a top-down approach focused on a specific aspect of participants' understanding of an earth-friendly career. The team oriented the thematic analysis toward manifest (semantic) rather than latent meaning, and language was conceptualized "as creating rather than simply reflecting meaning" ([<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref85">7</reflink>], p. 8).</p> <p>After the team was familiarized with the data, different codes were produced collaboratively. They were written to gain perspectives, and sorted into potential themes, which were then refined or discarded on the basis of collaboration. In case of any disagreement between the team members regarding the data coding or the definition of themes or subthemes, the discrepancies were resolved by open, detailed, and reflective discussions. The entire data corpus was coded manually. Saturation was achieved when further coding was no longer possible ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref86">24</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-12">Animal Attitude Scale (AAS-10)</hd> <p>The AAS-10 ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref87">34</reflink>]) is a self-report questionnaire derived from the 20-item Ethic Subscale of [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref88">33</reflink>] original 29-item AAS. The original AAS was designed to assess empathetic attitudes toward the welfare and protection of animals, which are also the focus of the AAS-10. The AAS-10 items pertain to the treatment and use of animals. Sample items include "I sometimes get upset when I see wild animals in cages at zoos," and "It is morally wrong to hunt wild animals just for sport." The authors mentioned that the 10-item and 5-item versions were devised to be included in studies in which participants respond to multiple scales in a single session. We chose the 10-item version so the children and adolescents would not get weary and because the 20-item version includes some items we felt were too complex for children. Because we needed a short scale, and the 5-item version had not been validated for children, it was reasonable not to exclude that some items may not work for children. If two or three items were to be withdrawn, the AAS-5 would be reduced to only two or three items, a number of items that can be expected to be not enough to have a reliable instrument. Therefore, we choose the 10-item version. As a whole, the different versions of the AAS were found to be one-dimensional, to have high internal consistency, and to be sensitive to individual differences, as summarized in [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref89">34</reflink>]. For adults, they found that the AAS-10 and the AAS-5 were strongly correlated with the original 20-item Ethic Subscale (<emph>r</emph>s =.98 and.95, respectively). Numerous empirical studies support the convergent and predictive validity of the AAS scales, which predict vegetarian food choices and engagement in animal protectionism, for example, and are highly correlated with the Speciesism scale (for an overview of the AAS empirical validity, see [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref90">34</reflink>]).</p> <p>We adapted the ten items to French in line with the International Test Commission's Guidelines (ITCG, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref91">41</reflink>]). The French version was translated back into English by a native English speaker. Two judges assessed the conceptual similarity between the original and back-translated items. Both were native English speakers, had an academic background in psychology, and judged the two versions of each item to be "identical" (i.e., using Jeanrie & Bertrand's four-point scale).</p> <p>AAS had never been used with children, so we were concerned with its age-appropriateness. The 27 third-grade students who individually checked the clarity of the EFCA items judged also the ten items on the French version of the AAS-10. Two children did not fully understand Item 7, "Breeding animals for their skins is a legitimate use of animals." To avoid this difficulty, we devised a standardized explanation, which was added in brackets: "For example, the skin of animals is used to make shoes or jackets." Items 8 ("Some aspects of biology can only be learned through dissecting preserved animals such as cats") and 9 ("It is unethical to breed purebred dogs for pets when millions of dogs are killed in animal shelters each year.") were said to be unclear by 19 and 24 children, respectively, so we decided to eliminate them. The remaining eight items included the five items of the AAS-5. We expected a scale containing these eight items, which were clearly understandable by third-grade children, to be appropriate for assessing empathetic and pro-welfare attitudes toward animals among participants in the age-range of interest here.</p> <p>First we checked each of the eight items for poor distribution (skewness and kurtosis below +1.5 and above −1.5) and high inter-item correlations (multicollinearity, <emph>r</emph> ≥.80). No items were taken out as a result ([<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref92">69</reflink>]). Since the scale's internal consistency was acceptable (alpha =.72), we averaged the items. The scores of the resulting variable ranged from 1 to 5, the mean and standard deviation were 3.86 and 0.74, respectively, and skewness (−.0.73) and kurtosis (.0.26) were acceptable.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-13">Basic Eco-Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (BEASCA)</hd> <p>Several scales have been used to assess eco-anxiety in adulthood or late adolescence, but none of these were designed for children. In addition, most adult scales target pathological anxiety (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref93">38</reflink>]). We did not intend to study the anxiety-disorder symptoms (e.g., difficulty sleeping) elicited by ecological issues, since we hypothesized (hypothesis 1) that eco-anxiety, as an anticipatory emotion ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref94">53</reflink>]), has an adaptive function.</p> <p>Accordingly, we used the Basic Eco-Anxiety Scale for Children and Adolescents (BEASCA, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref95">48</reflink>]), a one-dimensional scale which has been shown to have acceptable psychometric properties with a sample of nine-to-eighteen graders (<emph>N</emph> = 831), which includes the 587 respondents to the present questionnaire-based survey. This six-item instrument focuses on the propensity to experience fear, anger, and sadness in response to ecological threats. In research with adults, these three emotional reactions to ecological threats were found to load on a single dimension ([<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref96">59</reflink>]). It contains three items about global warming, one about species extinction, and two about "ecological problems" and "the future of life on earth." Overall, the items were devised in such a way as to avoid causing any ethical concern or psychological distress among participants as young as 9 years old. With the 587 students who participated in the present study, the scale revealed a high internal consistency (alpha =.87), very close to the one (alpha =.89) observed by [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref97">48</reflink>] with a sample that includes in addition older participants (namely, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders). More psychometric details can be found in [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref98">48</reflink>]. Therefore, we averaged the items. The scores of the resulting variable ranged from 1 to 5, the mean and standard deviation were 3.83 and 0.95, respectively, the skewness and kurtosis values were acceptable, at −.0.85 and.0.35, respectively.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-14">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189287604-15">Data Analysis</hd> <p>We begin by presenting the results of the thematic analysis, the generation of the EFCA scale items, and the results of the psychometric analysis of this new instrument. After that, we analyze the relationships between EFCAs and the two emotions, using product moment correlations and multiple regression analyses. Finally, we examine the gender and age variation of EFCA using a two-factor analysis of variance.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-16">Thematic Analysis of Youths' Perception of Careers That Respect the Earth</hd> <p>The team who carried out the thematic analysis sorted the coded data extracts resulting from focus-group discussions into four internally consistent themes, which were intended to avoid too much overlap, although they were closely interconnected. Since the interviews were conducted in French, the quotes used to illustrate themes are translations.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-17">Careers Deemed Inoffensive for the Environment</hd> <p>The first theme that characterized the participants' perception of an earth-friendly career refers to jobs that do not harm nature, destroy landscapes, or cause extinction of animal species, along with other popular environmental protection issues. This theme is related especially to concerns about pollution, and thus to jobs that do not increase climate warming, plastic in the oceans, stifling air, deforestation, air traffic, species extinction, food pollution, and so on. It provides a negative definition of earth-friendly careers, since it refers to what one should not do: these are careers that do not damage the environment. The third-grade girl said, "It's a job that doesn't send black smoke into the sky, which causes diseases in people who breathe the polluted air and babies that have asthma." The ninth-grade boy summarized his view by saying, "Even if it's not a job that tries to reduce the carbon footprint, if it doesn't add to it, it's a job that respects nature."</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-18">Careers Proactively Protecting the Environment</hd> <p>The second theme relates to jobs perceived as proactively oriented toward protecting the environment. Although they could be viewed as being a subtheme of the previous theme, we felt it was clearer to disentangle careers that are only inoffensive for nature from careers that are oriented toward improving our relationship with nature through various innovations. The identification of two main themes instead of one also reflected their importance since they were the ones that obtained the highest number of data extracts. A lot of data extracts were about jobs aimed, for example, at actively protecting animals, replanting forests, cleaning lakes and rivers. The fourth-grade boy stated, "For me, it's a job where we protect animals, we take care of them, we protect reservations against hunters." Higher-grade participants, in particular, mentioned some more specific jobs. According to the ninth-grade girl,</p> <p>When we invent new, more ecological materials, we have a job that respects nature. For example, there are types of cloth that are more respectful of nature than others, the tencel for example. It's a natural fiber. It doesn't come from petroleum, it is made from wood, tries. It consumes little energy and it's recyclable.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-19">Careers That Do Not Promote Overconsumption</hd> <p>Through this theme, the participants could relate to supra-individual determinations of the environmental imbalance by pointing out the role of overconsumption as a goal of companies. Instead of perceiving careers as more or less respectful of nature according to their direct effects on the environment, they are judged from the viewpoint of their effects on human consumer behavior. This theme was especially mentioned by high-schoolers. Although it overlaps somewhat with the first theme, we treated it as a theme rather than a subtheme in order to place value on its particularity. The eight-grade girl stated, "It's refusing planned obsolescence. It's producing durable products!" According to the fourth-grade boy, "a job that respects nature doesn't put out ads to make people want things that are bad for your health."</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-20">Difficulty and Uncertainty in Getting an Earth-Friendly Career</hd> <p>The fourth theme relates to difficulty getting an earth-friendly career and uncertainty as to whether one will have that opportunity. The participants doubted that everyone could have a job that is respectful of nature, and doubted that it was only a matter of personal choice. This theme includes the observation that many people have no choice, and are compelled to accept any job. For example, the fourth-grade girl observed, "First, you have to find a job where you earn a good living, and if you can choose a job that is pro-nature, then that's all for the better." Similarly, her male classmate stated, "I like to manage to have a job that respects nature, but if that's not possible, then too bad." The seventh-grade boy stated,</p> <p>You often hear about scientists, engineers, or other people who do things to protect nature and who find effective solution for pollution reduction, but not everyone can have a job like that. We also have to have people to fly airplanes and build them.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-21">Generating of the Items Targeting EFCAs</hd> <p>The team of two elementary school teachers and two junior-high-school teachers (supervised by first author) were presented with the conceptual model of EFCAs, as a theoretically one-dimensional target construct. Although the four themes could be assumed to be partially overlapping, all were retained in the exploratory scale since the creation of the item pool "is a crucial stage whose fundamental goal is to sample systematically all potentially relevant content to ensure the measure's ultimate content validity" ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref99">11</reflink>], p. 1415). They generated an initial pool of 12 items, many of which were overtly redundant. Because our aim was to devise a short scale that could be included in self-report surveys targeting children, redundant formulations were eliminated on the basis of open and reflective discussion. This provided a final pool of six items covering the four themes while placing more weight on the two first, closely related themes. The items are given in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1. Skewness, Kurtosis, and Component Loading for the Items Devised to Assess Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations (N = 587)</p> <p>Graph</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="top"><tr><th align="left">Items</th><th align="left"><italic>m</italic></th><th align="left"><italic>SD</italic></th><th align="left">Skewness</th><th align="left">Kurtosis</th><th align="left">Factor loading</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left">1. When I grow up, I want to have a job that will not be bad for the environment. / Plus tard je souhaite avoir un travail qui ne soit pas mauvais pour la nature</td><td align="char" char=".">4.13</td><td align="char" char=".">1.16</td><td align="char" char=".">−1.31</td><td align="char" char=".">.84</td><td align="char" char=".">.77</td></tr><tr><td align="left">2. I would like my future occupation to be useful in protecting nature. / J'aimerais que mon futur métier soit utile pour protéger la nature</td><td align="char" char=".">3.53</td><td align="char" char=".">1.25</td><td align="char" char=".">−.41</td><td align="char" char=".">−.77</td><td align="char" char=".">.71</td></tr><tr><td align="left">3. I hope I will have the opportunity to choose a career that respects the planet. / J'espère que je pourrai choisir un métier qui respecte la planète</td><td align="char" char=".">4.05</td><td align="char" char=".">1.07</td><td align="char" char=".">−.99</td><td align="char" char=".">−.31</td><td align="char" char=".">.81</td></tr><tr><td align="left">4. I would prefer that my company not push people to consume more and more. / Je préfèrerais que mon entreprise ne pousse pas les gens à consommer toujours plus</td><td align="char" char=".">3.86</td><td align="char" char=".">1.26</td><td align="char" char=".">−.94</td><td align="char" char=".">−.09</td><td align="char" char=".">.52</td></tr><tr><td align="left">5. I hope that my future occupation will respect nature. / J'espère que mon futur métier sera respectueux de la nature</td><td align="char" char=".">4.04</td><td align="char" char=".">1.09</td><td align="char" char=".">−.99</td><td align="char" char=".">.23</td><td align="char" char=".">.84</td></tr><tr><td align="left">6. I would like it if my future career did not worsen pollution problems. / J'aimerais que mon futur métier n'aggrave pas les problèmes de pollution</td><td align="char" char=".">4.23</td><td align="char" char=".">1.10</td><td align="char" char=".">−1.40</td><td align="char" char=".">−1.18</td><td align="char" char=".">.77</td></tr><tr><td align="left">% variance explained</td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="char" char=".">55.61%</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The class of third-graders who individually judged the French version of [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref100">34</reflink>] AAS-10 items for clarity also judged these six newly designed EFCA items. As a result of the clarity-checking task, all six items were approved by the 27 participants.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-22">Psychometric Properties of the EFCA Scale</hd> <p>We first evaluated the EFCA items for poor distributions. The mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of each item are presented in Table 1. The means were quite high for all six items. All standard deviations were greater than 1, and although the distributions were more or less asymmetrical, the skewness and kurtosis values were far below 3 and above – 3, suggesting that no floor or ceiling effect was detected ([<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref101">28</reflink>]). We therefore considered them acceptable.</p> <p>We explored the factor structure using a principal component analysis. One eigenvalue was greater than one. It was 3.34, and accounted for 55.61% of the variance. The scree plot indicated that the curve flattened after this eigenvalue. The loadings of items on this factor are presented in Table 1. The six items loaded positively, which is consistent with a one-dimensional structure. The averaged inter-item <emph>r</emph> was.47, suggesting that the six items measure the same construct, and the alpha coefficient was.83, reflecting satisfactory internal consistency. We therefore averaged the items. The EFCA scale means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis were 3.97, 0.85, −.95, and 91, respectively.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-23">EFCA Correlations with Eco-Anxiety and Empathetic Attitudes Toward Animals</hd> <p>The EFCA correlations with eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals were.57 and.47, respectively, and the correlation between eco-anxiety and animal empathy was.46 (for all three correlations, one sided <emph>p</emph> <.001). Since the two emotional variables were moderately correlated, we performed standard multiple regression analyses to find out whether either or both accounted for a part of the individual differences in EFCAs. Eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals made significant contributions to EFCAs (betas =.45 and.26, respectively, <emph>p</emph> <.001 for both), total <emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> =.38, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref102">2</reflink>, 584) = 177.65, <emph>p</emph> <.001, 90% CI [.33,.42].</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-24">EFCA Variations by Grade and Gender</hd> <p>To test the hypothesis that EFCAs decrease across grades (hypothesis 2), especially between the last year of elementary school (fifth grade) and the first year of junior high school (sixth grade), and that EFCAs are higher for girls than for boys (hypothesis 3), we performed a two-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA). The participant's gender and grade were the two between-subject variables, and the EFCA score was the dependent variable. The mean score was lower among boys than girls (<emph>M</emph>s = 3.82 and 4.15, <emph>SD</emph>s = 0.91 and 0.74, respectively), <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref103">1</reflink>, 573) = 26.08, <emph>p</emph> <.001, partial η2 =.04, 90%, CI [.02,.07]. There was a grade effect, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref104">6</reflink>, 573) = 19.27, <emph>p</emph> <.001, partial η2 =.17, 90%, CI [.12,.21], indicating a decrease in EFCA with grade. The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 2.</p> <p>Table 2. Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations (EFCAs) Means and Standard Deviations Across the Seven Grades for Boys (N = 287) and Girls (N = 300)</p> <p>Graph</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="top"><tr><th align="left">Grade</th><th align="left">Third</th><th align="left">Fourth</th><th align="left">Fifth</th><th align="left">Sixth</th><th align="left">Seventh</th><th align="left">Eight</th><th align="left">Ninth</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td align="left" colspan="8">Boys</td></tr><tr><td align="left"><italic>M</italic></td><td align="char" char=".">4.36</td><td align="char" char=".">4.37</td><td align="char" char=".">4.12</td><td align="char" char=".">3.75</td><td align="char" char=".">3.39</td><td align="char" char=".">3.34</td><td align="char" char=".">3.42</td></tr><tr><td align="left"><italic>SD</italic></td><td align="char" char=".">0.70</td><td align="char" char=".">0.44</td><td align="char" char=".">0.77</td><td align="char" char=".">0.91</td><td align="char" char=".">1.03</td><td align="char" char=".">0.80</td><td align="char" char=".">0.82</td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="8">Girls</td></tr><tr><td align="left"><italic>M</italic></td><td align="char" char=".">4.45</td><td align="char" char=".">4.41</td><td align="char" char=".">4.47</td><td align="char" char=".">4.22</td><td align="char" char=".">3.88</td><td align="char" char=".">3.79</td><td align="char" char=".">3.82</td></tr><tr><td align="left"><italic>SD</italic></td><td align="char" char=".">0.65</td><td align="char" char=".">0.62</td><td align="char" char=".">0.48</td><td align="char" char=".">0.72</td><td align="char" char=".">0.90</td><td align="char" char=".">0.75</td><td align="char" char=".">0.57</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Bonferroni-corrected post hoc comparisons indicated that the oldest three groups (students in Grades 7, 8, and 9), which did not differ from each other, reported significantly lower EFCA values than the three youngest groups (students in Grades 3, 4, and 5), which did not differ from each other. Between these two sets (the three oldest and the three youngest age groups), the sixth-grade group reported lower scores than the third-, and fourth-grade groups and higher scores than the eighth- and ninth- groups, but the sixth-grade group did not differ significantly (<emph>p</emph> >.01) from their two closest age groups, namely the fifth- and seventh-grade groups. Although the observed means of the grade-by-gender groups (Table 2) suggests a stronger decrease with age in boys than in girls, the grade-by-gender interaction was not even close to reaching significance.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-25">Discussion</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0189287604-26">Youths' Perceptions of Earth-Friendly Careers</hd> <p>Our first aim was to find out whether eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals are connected to a new kind of youth career aspirations: EFCAs. Our thematic analysis of children's and adolescents' discussions about getting an earth-friendly job, and what makes a career earth-friendly, yielded four main themes. According to our participants, an earth-friendly career (a) is inoffensive for the environment, (b) proactively protects the environment, (c) does not promote overconsumption, and (d) is difficult and uncertain to get. Since the debate here was focused on jobs that do not harm nature, it is not surprising that the first two themes detected express a general concern for nature, which was perceived as vulnerable and could be cared for and defended through work. This concern can be seen as an emotional response. It is noteworthy that when participants considered careers that respected nature, they spontaneously expressed eco-anxiety and empathy for animals (e.g., jobs that will not increase climate change or species extinction). Even their complaints against careers aimed at urging people to overconsume (third theme) can be assumed to be motivated by anger toward this kind of business practice. The fourth theme, which revealed participants' acknowledgment that not all of people can get an earth-friendly job, is consistent with the "realistic" view of careers known to be present in the age range we studied ([<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref105">26</reflink>]). Nevertheless, difficulty and uncertainty in achieving an earth-friendly career may also be viewed as a kind of anxiety. If this is correct, all the four themes, to some extent, express emotional concern.</p> <p>Overall, the thematic analysis suggests that youths' understanding of what it means to have an earth-friendly career seems, in itself, to be both a cognitive and an emotional activity, a finding which is consistent with hypothesis 1, according to which youths' EFCAs are emotionally driven.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-27">Youths' EFCA Connection to Eco-Anxiety and Empathy Toward Animals</hd> <p>Eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals accounted for our participants' EFCAs, a finding that is also consistent with hypothesis 1, with the weight of eco-anxiety being considerably larger. The positive link between EFCAs and eco-anxiety is in line with research that has consistently demonstrated that negative emotions about environmental threats among adults are associated with pro-environmental attitudes or behavior (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref106">44</reflink>]), and the few studies on youths that have supported this association (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref107">55</reflink>]). This finding is also consistent with our view of eco-anxiety as an anticipatory emotion, since anxiety plays an important role in foreseeing and preparing in general ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref108">53</reflink>]). However, it is adaptive only if youths cope with this emotion by doing something to fight against the environmental crisis. This result thus supports our theoretical proposal that examining education and future career opportunities that lead to planet-friendly occupations is an appropriate means of coping with eco-anxiety among youths. The interplay between eco-anxiety and EFCAs could also stimulate their creativity when they are exploring their future careers.</p> <p>We propose here that children's and adolescents' empathy toward animals enhances EFCAs (hypothesis 1). In support of this hypothesis, we observed a positive link between this emotion and EFCAs. Given that youths, at least from age six on, believe that nonhuman animals have the ability to think, feel, and experience emotions ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref109">31</reflink>]), and that they themselves experience animals' emotions through empathy ([<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref110">77</reflink>], we suggest that the link between empathy toward animals and EFCAs could reflect our participants' intuitive awareness that animals share with humans a common fate in the face of the challenge posed by a threatened environment. [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref111">61</reflink>] found that the strength of childhood attachment to pets predicted adult empathy toward animals, which in turn was related to a pro-environmental behavior, namely, low meat consumption. As a whole, these findings suggest that empathy toward animals, as an emotion rooted in childhood experiences, could foster youths' EFCAs, because they perceive earth-friendly careers as oriented toward the preservation of life on earth in general, including that of human and non-human beings.</p> <p>To summarize, given the connection of youths' EFCAs to eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals, we propose that these two eco-emotions support some degree of alertness to threats to our ecological niche, and also elicit a need for coping with those threats via the preparation of adaptive responses. This interpretation is in line with our proposal that youths' eco-emotions fulfill a watchtower function, as a result of evolutionary selective pressures favoring emotions that are useful in prompting children and especially adolescents ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref112">5</reflink>]) to anticipate the consequences of threats to their adult life.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-28">EFCA Variation Across Grade and Gender</hd> <p>The present cross-sectional study provided the first evidence that this type of career aspiration decreases sharply with age at the beginning of junior high school. This normative development could be seen as reflecting a move toward a more realistic approach to one's future career, insofar as a similar tendency has been found for the elementary and middle-school years in career-development research (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref113">32</reflink>]). At the end of the 4 years of French junior high school, students will go on into different educational curricula. The anxiety they experience about their future education and career ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref114">47</reflink>]) may prompt them to put less weight on the significance of their future career in the environmental crisis. From a global rather than individual point of view, however, it would be paradoxical to consider that the lowering of EFCAs with age reflects progress toward more realism, given the major environmental problems humanity is facing. It would be more relevant to characterize this lowering as a move from "greater-good" motivations to self-centered ones.</p> <p>We set out to shed additional light on the EFCA decline by relying on our thematic analysis. Our small sample of participants in focus groups mentioned many details regarding the environmental problems that earth-friendly jobs should fight or at least prevent from getting worse (climate change, pollution by plastics, air pollution, etc.), suggesting they clearly understood the problems targeted by earth friendly careers. However, the participants mentioned only a few particular jobs or specific training programs that are oriented toward improving the relationship between humans and nature (e.g., organic farming, designing campaigns against excessive meat consumption). Elementary school children are still a long way from career decision-making, but in France students are expected, as they go from grade to grade, to prepare for the vocational decisions they will have to make at the end of junior high school and again during each of the three subsequent school years. To this end, they are provided with vocational courses about curricula and careers ([<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref115">20</reflink>]), but these courses devote no attention to earth-friendly career issues. This may explain why our eight high-schoolers especially mentioned earth-friendly jobs that conveyed certain "sentimental" and stereotyped images of earth-friendly careers (e.g., caring for wild animals or cleaning the oceans). The decline of EFCAs noted here could partly be a consequence of adolescents' perception of these careers as lacking a reliable and up-to-date background of knowledge about trainings and jobs. In other words, we suggest that although significant, emotions are not enough when students become adolescents.</p> <p>Regarding gender, consistently with hypothesis 3, girls displayed higher EFCAs than boys, with a size effect that approached a medium level. This is consistent with research on pro-environmental attitudes, according to which such attitudes are stronger in women than in men (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref116">79</reflink>]), although some studies have found no gender difference in youths (e.g., for German students 9–10 and 11–13 years of age, see [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref117">46</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-29">Limitations and Future Directions</hd> <p>This study attempted to explore the role of emotions in youths' career aspirations in the context of global ecological imbalance. Our exploration has limitations. The scale we used to assess EFCAs was based on a thematic analysis of the construct by participants in the age range we studied; it demonstrated good internal consistency and was sensitive to age and gender differences. However, a scale with more items could reveal the multi-dimensional structure of the construct. For example, youths who feel strongly reluctant to work in companies that promote overconsumption may aspire only moderately to get jobs proactively oriented toward protecting the environment. A longer version of the scale would be suitable for examining the structure of EFCAs using robust procedures involving EFA and CFA. In addition, the other self-report questionnaires we used were also short scales, whose psychometric properties should be examined using more sophisticated validation procedures.</p> <p>We focused on two emotions that express worries about life on earth, namely eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals. In order to further identify emotions likely to enhance EFCAs, other emotions known to influence youths' career aspirations should be taken into account. Hope, which is known to predict adolescents' career explorations ([<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref118">37</reflink>]) could be an incentive for exploring the feasibility of a career that respects the planet.</p> <p>Another limitation is related to the socioeconomic specificity of the population we studied. Since our participants had a middle-to-high socio-economic background, we cannot generalize our results beyond this specific population. Our participants are representative of Western countries with a high standard of living that are not among those most exposed to environmental threats. Additionally, they are also representative of countries where citizens grow up in a cultural and educational context that promotes the understanding of environmental issues (e.g., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref119">15</reflink>]). As has been found for youths' climate anxiety and beliefs about climate change ([<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref120">35</reflink>]), the emotions and reactions to the global environmental crisis may vary across countries with different incomes and levels of direct exposure to the effects of climate change.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-30">Implications for Practice</hd> <p>In this specific population, where youths' eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals were found to be associated to EFCAs, we propose to view this kind of career aspiration as a strategy for coping with these emotions. We suggest that counselors who approach EFCAs with these youths should try to more clearly identify their emotional roots, which may be different across individuals, with more anxiety about climate for some, and more empathy about vulnerable beings like animals for others. These concerns provide paths for examining, with youths, the broader emotional context of their career-development exploration. This could boost their ability to foresee their future career and way of life ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref121">27</reflink>]).</p> <p>In addition to this emotional approach, students could be assisted in discovering the true nature of earth-friendly careers. Our findings in themselves do not call for promoting these careers among young people, since this a political choice. However, if a person intends to give students opportunities to choose educational curricula that lead to this kind of career, our results suggest that it would be relevant to provide adolescents with reliable and precise knowledge about educational opportunities geared specifically to earth-friendly jobs. This kind of knowledge could support adolescents' understanding that aspiring to an earth-friendly career can be a "realistic" ambition, rather than solely "sentimental" one. This could perhaps mitigate not only the EFCA decline with age that we observed, but also the boys' lower EFCA level than the girls'. For example, counselors could explain to boys how their interests in technology are compatible with EFCAs.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-31">Conclusion</hd> <p>Our overarching goal was to emphasize the relevance, for counselors, of keeping their eyes wide open to youths' EFCAs, insofar as these aspirations seem to be rooted in emotions whose adaptive function requires proactive coping strategies, one of which might lie in their EFCAs. We hope this exploratory study on the role of emotions in children's and adolescents' vocational behavior will help bridge the gap between research on environmental issues and research on youths' career-decision-making processes. We expect this "bridge" will continue to be used because the global environmental crisis is far from being solved, and because the ways youths envision their future lives, and especially their careers, play a strategic role in societal change. In the context of the Anthropocene, it is crucial to gain a deeper understanding of how environmental issues can shape vocational choices.</p> <hd id="AN0189287604-32">ORCID iDs</hd> <p>Pascal Mallet https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5709-9756</p> <p>Emmanuelle Vignoli https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1036-4548</p> <ref id="AN0189287604-33"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref28" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Albrecht G. A. (2019). Earth emotions: New words for a new world. Cornell University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref32" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Bandura A., Cherry L. (2019). Enlisting the power of youth for climate change. The American Psychologist, 75(7), 945–951. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000512</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref52" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Bjerke T., Ødegårdstuen T. S., Kaltenborn B. P. (1998). Attitudes toward animals among Norwegian children and adolescents: Species preferences. 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Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 443–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00177</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <ref id="AN0189287604-34"> <title> Footnotes </title> <blist> <bibtext> The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Pascal Mallet and Emmanuelle Vignoli</p> <p>Reported by Author; Author</p> <p></p> <p>Pascal Mallet, Ph D, is a professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychological and educational sciences, and member of the Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Développement, both at the Université Paris Nanterre. After his master degree in clinical psychology, he finished his PhD research in developmental psychology of adolescence at the Institut de Psychologie (Université Paris Descartes) and Institut National d'Etude du Travail et d'Orientation Professionnelle (INETOP, Paris). His research interests include children's and adolescents' peer and parents relationships, and their connections with vocational and emotional development. He likes spending his leisure time with family and friends, and likes to read books, to watch movies, and to walk and ride a bicycle on the seaside and in the countryside.</p> <p>Emmanuelle Vignoli, Ph D, is a professor in vocational psychology at the Institut National d'Etude du Travail et d'Orientation Professionnelle, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris. She got her doctor's degree from the Institut de Psychologie (Université Paris Descartes) and Institut National d'Etude du Travail et d'Orientation Professionnelle (INETOP, Paris). Her research interests focus on the role of emotions and relationships with significant others in career development and career transitions among young people and adults. She enjoys spending time with her family, reading books, going to exhibitions, walking, swimming, ride a bicycle, and drawing or painting.</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib60" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib18" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib40" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib39" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib45" firstref="ref5"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl6" bibid="bib71" firstref="ref6"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl7" bibid="bib57" firstref="ref7"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl8" bibid="bib73" firstref="ref8"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl9" bibid="bib15" firstref="ref9"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl10" bibid="bib35" firstref="ref10"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl11" bibid="bib29" firstref="ref11"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl12" bibid="bib62" firstref="ref12"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl13" bibid="bib63" firstref="ref13"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl14" bibid="bib27" firstref="ref14"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl15" bibid="bib25" firstref="ref16"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl16" bibid="bib37" firstref="ref17"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl17" bibid="bib65" firstref="ref18"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl18" bibid="bib76" firstref="ref19"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl19" bibid="bib16" firstref="ref20"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl20" bibid="bib56" firstref="ref21"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl21" bibid="bib42" firstref="ref23"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl22" bibid="bib21" firstref="ref26"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl23" bibid="bib53" firstref="ref27"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl24" bibid="bib19" firstref="ref29"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl25" bibid="bib55" firstref="ref31"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl26" bibid="bib13" firstref="ref35"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl27" bibid="bib66" firstref="ref36"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl28" bibid="bib22" firstref="ref37"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl29" bibid="bib12" firstref="ref38"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl30" bibid="bib72" firstref="ref40"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl31" bibid="bib59" firstref="ref41"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl32" bibid="bib23" firstref="ref42"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl33" bibid="bib17" firstref="ref44"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl34" bibid="bib77" firstref="ref45"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl35" bibid="bib78" firstref="ref46"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl36" bibid="bib50" firstref="ref47"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl37" bibid="bib43" firstref="ref48"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl38" bibid="bib31" firstref="ref49"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl39" bibid="bib51" firstref="ref50"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl40" bibid="bib67" firstref="ref51"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl41" bibid="bib61" firstref="ref53"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl42" bibid="bib49" firstref="ref54"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl43" bibid="bib34" firstref="ref55"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl44" bibid="bib52" firstref="ref57"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl45" bibid="bib74" firstref="ref58"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl46" bibid="bib36" firstref="ref60"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl47" bibid="bib64" firstref="ref61"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl48" bibid="bib75" firstref="ref62"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl49" bibid="bib68" firstref="ref63"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl50" bibid="bib58" firstref="ref64"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl51" bibid="bib30" firstref="ref65"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl52" bibid="bib14" firstref="ref66"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl53" bibid="bib70" firstref="ref67"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl54" bibid="bib38" firstref="ref69"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl55" bibid="bib79" firstref="ref70"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl56" bibid="bib26" firstref="ref71"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl57" bibid="bib48" firstref="ref78"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl58" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref79"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl59" bibid="bib54" firstref="ref82"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl60" bibid="bib24" firstref="ref86"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl61" bibid="bib33" firstref="ref88"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl62" bibid="bib41" firstref="ref91"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl63" bibid="bib69" firstref="ref92"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl64" bibid="bib11" firstref="ref99"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl65" bibid="bib28" firstref="ref101"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl66" bibid="bib44" firstref="ref106"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl67" bibid="bib32" firstref="ref113"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl68" bibid="bib47" firstref="ref114"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl69" bibid="bib20" firstref="ref115"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl70" bibid="bib46" firstref="ref117"></nolink>
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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Two Emotional Roots of Youths' Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations: Eco-Anxiety and Empathy toward Animals
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Pascal+Mallet%22">Pascal Mallet</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5709-9756">0000-0002-5709-9756</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Emmanuelle+Vignoli%22">Emmanuelle Vignoli</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1036-4548">0000-0003-1036-4548</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Career+Development%22"><i>Journal of Career Development</i></searchLink>. 2025 52(6):696-718.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 23
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Elementary+Education%22">Elementary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+3%22">Grade 3</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Primary+Education%22">Primary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+4%22">Grade 4</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Intermediate+Grades%22">Intermediate Grades</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+5%22">Grade 5</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Middle+Schools%22">Middle Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+6%22">Grade 6</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+7%22">Grade 7</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Junior+High+Schools%22">Junior High Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Secondary+Education%22">Secondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+8%22">Grade 8</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+9%22">Grade 9</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22High+Schools%22">High Schools</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Career+Choice%22">Career Choice</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Occupational+Aspiration%22">Occupational Aspiration</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Emotional+Response%22">Emotional Response</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Anxiety%22">Anxiety</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Ecology%22">Ecology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Empathy%22">Empathy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Animals%22">Animals</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+3%22">Grade 3</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+4%22">Grade 4</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+5%22">Grade 5</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+6%22">Grade 6</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+7%22">Grade 7</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+8%22">Grade 8</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+9%22">Grade 9</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Age+Differences%22">Age Differences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Gender+Differences%22">Gender Differences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Elementary+School+Students%22">Elementary School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Junior+High+School+Students%22">Junior High School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Conservation+%28Environment%29%22">Conservation (Environment)</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22France%22">France</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1177/08948453251382178
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0894-8453<br />1556-0856
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: The present study examined the role of eco-emotions in youths' career development. We hypothesized that eco-anxiety and empathy toward animals account for children's and adolescents' earth-friendly career aspirations (EFCAs). Relying on focus groups of third-to-ninth-grade French students, we used a thematic analysis to explore their view of careers that respect the earth. The main themes uncovered were used to construct a self-report EFCA scale. French third-to-ninth graders (N = 587, 51% girls) from middle-to-high socio-economic levels participated in a survey assessing EFCA, eco-anxiety, and empathetic attitudes toward animals. The results showed that these two emotions made independent contributions to EFCAs. The EFCAs were lower in early adolescents than in children, and higher in girls than in boys. We propose that eco-emotions are adaptive and function as a "watchtower" by enhancing youths' earth-friendly plans for their adult life. We discuss the relevance of taking EFCAs and eco-emotions into account in career counseling.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1490842
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1490842
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    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1177/08948453251382178
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 23
        StartPage: 696
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Career Choice
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Occupational Aspiration
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Emotional Response
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Anxiety
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Ecology
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Empathy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Animals
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 3
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 4
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 5
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 6
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 7
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 8
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 9
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Age Differences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Gender Differences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Junior High School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Conservation (Environment)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: France
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      – TitleFull: Two Emotional Roots of Youths' Earth-Friendly Career Aspirations: Eco-Anxiety and Empathy toward Animals
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            NameFull: Pascal Mallet
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            NameFull: Emmanuelle Vignoli
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              Type: published
              Y: 2025
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              Value: 0894-8453
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            – TitleFull: Journal of Career Development
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