The climate crisis is an unprecedented existential threat that causes disturbing emotions, such as anxiety. Recently, Clayton and Karazsia measured climate anxiety as “a more clinically significant ‘anxious’ response to climate change” (2020, p. 9). To gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon from an empirical psychological perspective, we translated the core of the Climate Anxiety Scale into German and assessed potential correlates in a large German-speaking quota sample (N = 1011, stratified by age and gender). Overall, people reported low levels of climate anxiety. Climate anxiety correlated positively with general anxiety and depressiveness, avoidance of climate change in everyday life, frustration of basic psychological needs, pro-environmental behavioral intentions, and policy support. It correlated negatively with different forms of climate denial and was unrelated to ideological beliefs. We were not able to replicate the two dimensions found in the original scale. Moreover, we argue that items appear to measure a general climate-related emotional impairment, rather than distinctly and comprehensively capturing climate anxiety. Thus, we encourage researchers to rework the scale and include an emotional factor in future research efforts.

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The climate crisis is an unprecedented existential threat that causes disturbing emotions, such as anxiety. However, relatively little is known about how people cope with climate anxiety, how it influences mental health and well-being, and whether it is relevant for climate (in)action. Recently, Clayton and Karazsia measured climate anxiety as a “clinically significant anxious response to climate change” (2020, p. 9) that may impair human well-being and functioning. To gain a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon from an empirical psychological perspective, we translated the Climate Anxiety Scale into German and assessed potential correlates in a large German-speaking quota sample (N=1011, stratified by age and gender). Overall, people reported low levels of climate anxiety. Climate anxiety correlated positively with anxiety and depressiveness, avoidance of climate change in everyday life, and the frustration of basic psychological needs. It correlated negatively with climate-relevant self-protective strategies and denial. While unrelated to ideological beliefs, stronger climate anxiety was associated with pro-environmental intentions and support for climate policies. We were not able to replicate the scale’s original factor structure. Thus, we encourage researchers to rework the scale and include an emotional factor in future research efforts.

Despite urgent need for climate action, denial of climate change and resulting absence of appropriate pro-environmental behavior are widespread. Interpretive (recognition of climate change as a problem but re-interpretation of its severity) and implicatory denial of climate change (recognition of climate change as a problem but denial of psychological, political, and moral implications) can be interpreted as self-protective strategies people use to protect the self in the face of threat. However, research has usually considered individual self-protective strategies but has not integrated them into one comprehensive measure. The present research aimed at reviewing the existing literature and constructing the Climate Self-Protection Scale (CSPS) to assess climate-relevant defensive, self-protective strategies. In Study 1, N=354 Germans responded to a pool of items. Using exploratory main axis analysis, we identified a five-factorial structure of the measure, corresponding to the self-protective strategies rationalization, avoidance, denial of personal outcome severity, denial of global outcome severity, and denial of guilt. Study 2 (N=453 Germans) used confirmatory factor analysis to verify the five-factorial structure of the CSPS. Self-protective strategies were positively related with each other (except for avoidance and denial of guilt) and fit into a framework of interpretive (denial of global and personal outcome severity) and implicatory denial (rationalization, avoidance, denial of guilt). They related positively to male gender and rightwing political orientation, and negatively to various indicators of pro-environmentalism, even when controlling for covariates. This provides evidence of criterion and construct validity of the CSPS. In future research, the scale could be used as a tool to examine climate-relevant self-protective strategies further.