Toward a unified understanding of climate anxiety: Examining measures of climate and eco-anxiety

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339562 December 29, 2025 11 / 19 correlation, we tested a second joint model (M2): a higher-order structure in which a single overarching general fac- tor was indicated by the CAS factor and the four HEAS factors. The conceptual model is shown in Fig 3, while the full model, including all factor loadings, is available in the supplementary material (https://osf.io/wvbd3/; S3 Fig). This model produced identical fit indices to the first model. Loadings were very homogeneous and large across the factors from both scales (λ = .831–.984), with the CAS loading being descriptively the smallest loading but still comparable to the HEAS-npi loading (λ = .878). Considering the homogeneity of factor loadings in the second model, we concluded that the CAS factor fits well under the higher-order factor. Additionally, working with one global factor across both scales offered a more parsimonious approach than considering the scales separately. Therefore, we adopted the second joint model (M2) for subsequent anal- yses. In the discussion, we explain why we refer to this overarching factor as climate anxiety. To allow readers to compare association patterns with validation constructs across both joint modeling approaches (M1 and M2), the supplementary material presents validity analyses in which CAS and HEAS are examined as separate correlating factors (model M1; https://osf.io/wvbd3/; see Section 7 in the file 2_CA_Paper_supplement_analysis_final2,

available in both HTML and RMD formats). The results show that the two higher-order factors for HEAS and CAS display redundant correlation patterns, both in magnitude and in direction, further supporting the selection of M2 for the main analyses. Fig 3. Scheme plots of the tested joint models for climate and eco-anxiety. Note. M1 = Model 1; M2 = Model 2; HEAS-as = affective symptoms; HEAS-r = rumination; HEAS-bs = behavioral symptoms; HEAS-npi = anxiety about negative personal impact. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339562.g003