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 9 / 19 cognitive consequences (items 5, 8, 10). Following Wullenkord and colleagues [9], we excluded Item 6 when testing their model. The simplest model, the g-factor model, met the thresholds for acceptable to good model fit. Both two-factor solutions reached the same fit thresholds but showed extremely high factor correlations (r = .983/.930). Given that the g-factor model already demonstrated good model fit, was more parsimonious, and considering the very high factor correlations, we concluded that the g-factor model was the most appropriate for the CAS. HEAS measurement model. For the HEAS, we tested a g-factor model and a four-factor structure proposed by Hogg et al. [12]. These four factors included affective symptoms (items 1–4), rumination (items 5–7), behavioral symptoms (items 8–10), and anxiety about one’s negative impact on the planet (items 11–13). The g-factor model demonstrated reasonable fit, but CFI, TLI, and RMSEA did not meet the threshold for good fit. In contrast, the four-factor solution met all fit thresholds for good fit. However, this model exhibited very high correlations between the four factors (r = .808 to .983), suggesting that a higher-order general factor might provide a similarly strong Fig 1. Scheme plots of all tested models for the Climate Anxiety Scale (CAS). Note. CAS_cei = cognitive-emotional impairment; CAS_fi = functional impairment; CAS_cc = cognitive consequences; CAS_bs = behavioral symptoms. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339562.g001