Climate emergency coping scale: development and validation of a multidimensional scale.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Environmental Science
• Public Health

Background:

• Climate emergency causes significant psychological distress, including anxiety and helplessness.
• Existing tools lack validation for assessing climate crisis coping, particularly differentiating individual and social strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Climate Emergency Coping Scale (CECS) for assessing emotional and behavioral coping with the climate crisis.
• To differentiate between individual and social coping mechanisms in response to climate change.

Main Methods:

• Four studies with Spanish samples (total N=2847) were conducted for scale development and validation.
• Qualitative analysis informed item generation, followed by pilot testing, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis.
• Reliability, validity (convergent, discriminant, incremental), and measurement invariance were assessed.

Main Results:

• The final 12-item CECS demonstrated a robust three-factor structure: functional-individual, functional-social, and dysfunctional coping.
• The scale showed strong evidence of reliability and validity across diverse demographic groups (gender, age, education).

Conclusions:

• The CECS is a psychometrically sound instrument for evaluating individual and community coping with the climate emergency's psychological impact.
• This scale can guide future research and interventions focused on adaptive coping and collective efficacy in addressing global environmental challenges.