Environmental identity and subsequent eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, and eco-anger among Filipino emerging adults: evidence from a two-wave longitudinal study

Introduction Climate emotions have received increasing scholarly attention because of their implications for mental health, environmental engagement, and adaptation to environmental change. However, research has focused primarily on the consequences of climate emotions, whereas comparatively less attention has been devoted to understanding the psychological characteristics prospectively associated with these emotional responses. Environmental identity, defined as the incorporation of nature into one’s self-concept, may represent an important psychological foundation of climate emotions because incorporating nature into one’s self-concept may increase the identity relevance of environmental degradation. The present study examined the prospective associations between environmental identity and three climate emotions: eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, and eco-anger among university-attending Filipino emerging adults recruited from a private university. Methods Using a two-wave longitudinal design, 266 participants completed measures of environmental identity at Time 1 and climate emotions two weeks later. Results Structural equation modeling indicated that environmental identity was positively associated with eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, and eco-anger. Discussion The findings suggest that environmental identity is prospectively associated with multiple climate emotions, although these associations were generally modest in magnitude. More broadly, the study contributes to understanding why some individuals experience stronger emotional responses to environmental change than others while extending longitudinal evidence from a climate-vulnerable context.