Climate adaptation self-efficacy has been recognized as a key precedent influencing one’s climate adaptation behaviors. It is unclear, however, whether lacking such self-efficacy would have a consequence on one’s well-being and whether this pattern would vary across countries. Using data from an international survey across 26 countries, this study found a robust positive association between climate adaptation self-efficacy and subjective well-being with a modest effect size ( r = .32, 95% CI = [.29, .35]). This association was found to be stronger among countries lacking climate adaptive capacity and with greater economic inequality. These findings raise concerns that lacking climate adaptation self-efficacy may have adverse consequences for citizens’ well-being. • Climate adaptation self-efficacy is positively linked to life satisfaction. • Meta-analysis across 26 countries shows robust association (r = .32). • Effect remains after adjusting for demographics and national indicators. • Institutional adaptiveness and equality buffer low self-efficacy’s well-being cost.

A growing body of research in environmental psychology demonstrates that environments influence cognition, affect, and mental health. However, environmental effects are still predominantly interpreted through broad categorical distinctions such as urban/rural and nature/built. While productive for identifying differences between settings, these categories encompass highly heterogeneous environments with fundamentally different perceptual, spatial, social, and structural properties. As a result, findings across the literature remain difficult to reconcile, and the mechanisms linking environmental exposure to psychological outcomes often remain underspecified. In this review, we argue that environmental influences on cognition and mental health are better understood in terms of feature-specific interactions rather than categorical environment types. Drawing on evidence from environmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience, we show that the psychological effects of environments cut across conventional distinctions and vary substantially both within and between settings. We synthesize findings demonstrating how category-based approaches obscure mechanistic understanding and limit theoretical integration, particularly across disciplines. To address these limitations, we propose a feature-based approach in which environments are conceptualized as multidimensional profiles and organized into a minimal set of feature families aligned with temporal scales of processing (sensory, perceptual, and semantic process). This scaffold links environmental specification to mechanistic hypotheses and measurable variables, providing a principled basis for interpreting heterogeneity in cognitive and mental health findings and for advancing cumulative theory, method, and application in environmental psychology. • Environmental psychology often relies on coarse categories that bundle heterogeneous exposures. • Mixed and contradictory findings arise because category labels collapse sensory, spatial, social, and semantic differences within environments. • A feature-based approach provides a common language that connects environmental psychology with planning and design, moving the field from descriptive categories toward testable design hypotheses. • We propose a minimal, time-scale–aligned approach to feature families to specify environments mechanistically.

Excess human emissions, largely from industrialized nations, cause the climate crisis. Calls for climate action are thus inherently group-based (i.e., target people from industrialized nations) and often critical (i.e., challenging unsustainable lifestyles). Because group criticism by fellow ingroup members has been shown to be more acceptable than criticism by outsiders (intergroup sensitivity effect), we argue that critical calls for climate action across group-boundaries are ineffective as compared to the same calls by a messenger within that group. In the present work, American and European participants consistently rejected criticism of insufficient climate action in the U.S. and Europe (i.e., “the West”) from a Chinese participant (outgroup source) as compared to the same comments from participants from their own region (ingroup sources). Further, joint membership in the superordinate group “the West” was sufficient to make criticism acceptable; extended ingroup commenters (e.g., Europeans for American participants) were equally accepted as ingroup sources. Exploratory moderation analyses showed that the group-based rejection of criticism emerged only among participants with moderate-to-high beliefs in the existence of climate change but not among climate change deniers. We discuss how changing group processes can help master the climate crisis. • Unsustainable lifestyles among different groups cause the climate crisis • Different groups are thus a legitimate target for critical calls to climate action • Outgroup calls were consistently rejected as compared to the same ingroup calls • Responses to calls by full and extended ingroup (superordinate group) did not differ • Redefining group boundaries could be one key to mastering the climate crisis