Eco-Anxiety in Daily Life: Relationships with Well-Being and Pro-Environmental Behaviour

Little is known about how eco-anxiety, or feelings of anxiety and worry about mounting environmental issues, relates to well-being and pro-environmental behaviour in daily life. To help address this issue, I conducted a preregistered daily diary study, wherein Carleton University undergraduates (N = 132) provided trait reports and two weeks of daily reports (n = 1439) on eco-anxiety, positive and negative affect, meaning in life, and pro-environmental behaviour. At the trait level, average scores on eco-anxiety were fairly low; yet, higher scores were associated with less positive affect and more negative affect and pro-environmental behaviour. Daily average scores on eco-anxiety were even lower at the state level, but on days people did feel greater eco-anxiety, they also reported greater negative affect and pro-environmental behaviour. Lagged analyses provided some evidence that eco-anxiety increases future negative affect. No significant relationships between eco-anxiety and meaning in life emerged at both levels of analysis.