Eco-anxiety and climate-anxiety linked to indirect exposure: A scoping review of empirical research

Abstract

Psychological responses to knowledge about the risks of climate change and other global environmental problems (referred to as climate anxiety or eco-anxiety) are distinct from the psychological impacts of direct exposure and increased physical vulnerability to environmental phenomena. Previous scoping reviews have either focused on both direct and indirect impacts together or a particular target population. We conducted a scoping review of the literature on indirect exposure to identify the body of published studies in this area, which methodologies are informing this field, what populations are being studied, as well as what interventions are being developed.
We searched four databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, MEDLINE, and Engineering village) and grey literature for English language studies between 2000–August 2023, and identified 90 published articles meeting our search criteria. The majority (80%) of the articles were published since 2020, primarily in Europe, North America, and Australasia.
More than half of the studies were quantitative and most of these focused on development of measurement tools (12 types). The Climate Change Anxiety Scale and the Hogg Eco-anxiety scale are the measures with the most validation studies. Risk factors repeatedly examined were age, gender, ethnicity, anxiety, depression, and pro-environmental behaviours. Qualitative (n = 13) and mixed methods studies (n = 7) were less common and focused on populations such as activists, scientists, children and parents, young adults, and self-identifying climate-sensitive individuals. Intervention studies were varied in nature, predominantly group-based and evaluated qualitatively or in single armed studies, with only one study using a comparison group.
Climate anxiety is a rapidly expanding research topic and there are increasing studies outside of WEIRD nations. The progress made in developing validated measurement tools for this relatively new phenomenon could be complemented by more qualitative and mixed methods approaches. Interventions are being implemented, but the research on interventions is in its infancy. There is an urgency to progress this field, not only to learn how to respond to those with debilitating distress but also to understand how to harness our emotional responses towards positive action related to global environmental concerns.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Stephanie Gauthier: orcid.org/0000-0002-1720-1736

ORCID for Denise Baden: orcid.org/0000-0002-2736-4483

ORCID for Ben Ainsworth: orcid.org/0000-0002-5098-1092

ORCID for Lucy Dorey: orcid.org/0000-0002-5580-6592

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