Commentary: Three tasks for eco-anxiety research - a commentary on Thompson et al. (2021)

Based on years of interdisciplinary research about eco-anxiety, the author discusses here the new research article by Thompson et al. (2021) and depicts three major challenges for eco-anxiety research. The first challenge is the multifaceted character of anxiety. Eco-anxiety is related to both motivation and distress, as the results of Thompson et al. (2021) also show. The second challenge is the need to know about the coping skills of the person and the social group, when eco-anxiety is measured and especially if its relation to pro-environmental behaviour is studied. There may be high distress, but still the person or group may be able to cope constructively. The third challenge is to integrate knowledge about emotional skills in this kind of research. The author discusses the item related to crying about climate change in recent measures of climate anxiety (Clayton & Karazsia 2020) and links this discussion about coping with the results of Thompson et al. (2021). The new article brings important empirical evidence about the complexity of eco-anxiety, even while the data is limited.