On the nature of eco-anxiety

Drawing on habit theory, this paper investigates habitual worry about global warming as a form of 'eco-anxiety', asking whether such worrying is constructive - a motivated pro-environmental response - or unconstructive, functioning more like a symptom of pathological worry. Across three studies, the authors find that global warming worry, when controlled for other worry sources such as personal issues and the economy, is not significantly associated with pathological worry, and instead correlates with markers of constructiveness including a 'green' self-identity and other determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. The habitual quality of the worry - its enduring, repetitive, automatic nature - is argued to be what gives it power to shape behaviour, whether toward constructive engagement or, potentially, toward paralysis, offering an empirically grounded case for taking eco-anxiety seriously as a largely adaptive rather than purely pathological response.