When eco-anger (but not eco-anxiety nor eco-sadness) makes you change! A temporal network approach to the emotional experience of climate change

• Published in: Journal of anxiety disorders Vol. 102; p. 102822
• Main Authors: Contreras, Alba, Blanchard, M. Annelise, Mouguiama-Daouda, Camille, Heeren, Alexandre
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2024
• Subjects: Anger; Anxiety; Climate anxiety; Climate Change; Eco-anger; Eco-anxiety; Eco-emotions; Eco-sadness; Emotions; Experience sampling method; Humans; Pro-environmental behaviors; Psychiatric/Mental Health; Sadness; Temporal network approach; Climate anxiety; Climate change; Temporal network approach; Eco-sadness; Experience sampling method; Eco-anger; Eco-anxiety; Eco-emotions; Pro-environmental behaviors; eco-anxiety; eco-emotions; eco-anger; eco-sadness; pro-environmental behaviors; temporal network approach; climate change; climate anxiety; experience sampling method
• ISSN: 0887-6185; 1873-7897; 1873-7897
• DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2023.102822

Research on the emotional experience of climate change has become a hot topic. Yet uncertainties remain regarding the interplay between climate change-related emotions (i.e., eco-anxiety, eco-anger, eco-sadness), general emotions (i.e., regardless of climate change), and pro-environmental behaviors. Most previous research has focused on cross-sectional studies, and eco-emotions in everyday life have seldom been considered. In this preregistered study, 102 participants from the general population rated their eco-emotions (i.e., eco-anxiety, eco-anger, eco-sadness), general emotions (i.e., anxiety, anger, sadness), and pro-environmental intentions and behaviors daily over a 60-day period. Using a multilevel vector autoregressive approach, we computed three network models representing temporal (i.e., from one time-point to the next), contemporaneous (i.e., during the same time-frame), and between-subject (i.e., similar to cross-sectional approach) associations between variables. Results show that eco-anger was the only predictor of pro-environmental intentions and behaviors over time. At the contemporaneous level, the momentary experience of each eco-emotion was associated with the momentary emotional experience of the corresponding general emotion, indicating the distinctiveness of each eco-emotion and the correspondence between its experience and that of its general, non-climate-related emotion. Overall, our findings 1) emphasize the driving role of eco-anger in prompting pro-environmental behaviors over time, 2) suggest a functional and experiential distinction between eco-emotions, and 3) provide data-driven clues for the field's larger quest to establish the scientific foundations of eco-emotions. •Much remains to be learned about the emotional experience of climate change and its (mal)adaptive correlates.•We generated temporal network models of the interplay between eco-emotions, emotions, and pro-environmental behaviors.•Anger vis-à-vis climate change was the only predictor of pro-environmental intentions and behaviors over time.