Validation of the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale

Abstract

As one of the biggest environmental and equality challenges of our time, climate change is causing some people to experience climate anxiety. To address the need for valid and reliable measurement of this construct, we adapted the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale to measure climate anxiety in the United Kingdom (n = 501) and United States (n = 508). In both samples, we found the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale (HCAS) was comprised of four dimensions: affective symptoms, behavioural symptoms, ruminative thoughts, and anxiety about one’s personal impact. The four-factor HCAS fit the data well, showed measurement invariance in these two samples, and all dimensions were internally consistent. Importantly, we also provide evidence for convergent validity by demonstrating that HCAS scores were positively correlated with an alternative measure of eco-anxiety and a more general indicator of worry in one’s daily life. The dimensions of the HCAS also showed distinct associations with theoretically related constructs, for example only personal impact anxiety and rumination were significant predictors of taking collective action on climate change, and personal impact anxiety was distinctly predictive of climate inequality beliefs. We recommend the HCAS as a brief (13 item) measurement tool to capture experiences of climate anxiety.