Background: The quantification of emotions associated with the climate crisis has been limited by the lack of consensual assessment tools. Our study proposes to design and validate for the first time a pictorial test to depict negative emotions in response to climate change at the moment they arise in an ecological way, i.e. the ‘Pictorial Climate Emotions Test’ (PiCET). Methods: We carried-out cross-sectional research among 2844 community adults originating from four Arab countries. Results: Our analyses indicated a unitary factor structure of the PiCET, with excellent internal consistency reliability (α = 0.90). The factorial structure of PiCET was established across sexes and different nationality groups at the metric, configural and scalar levels. Emotional response to the variety of images picturing climate change positively and moderately correlated with self-reported climate anxiety, eco-guilt and eco-grief. Besides, affective reactions to climate change-related pictures showed significant positive correlations with conscientious efforts undertaken with regard to eco-friendly food choices, as well as with depression-anxiety symptoms. Conclusion: The PiCET is rapid to complete, intuitive for respondents, and meaningful for researchers. It is anticipated that its use will expand broadly across the globe, and will aid in improving the understanding of climate emotions.
Fekih-Romdhane et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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