Structure of the relationships between psychological and environmental variables in response to the climate crisis in Argentine and Spanish populations: a psychometric network analysis

Abstract The present study examined the relational structure between psychological and environmental variables associated with climate change: eco-anxiety, epistemic processes, coping strategies, psychological well-being, and pro-environmental behavior and assessed its stability across Argentine and Spanish populations. A non-experimental, cross-sectional, comparative design was employed with a total sample of 3.554 adults (Argentina n = 1,808; Spain n = 1,746). Psychometric networks were estimated using regularized Gaussian graphical models and formally compared between countries using the Network Comparison Test. Additionally, multivariate differences were analyzed through MANCOVA, incorporating direct experience with climate-related extreme events as a covariate. Results revealed a moderately dense and highly stable network structure, organized into four functional clusters, with substantial similarity across countries. Active/adaptive and emotional/neutral coping strategies, along with general anxiety and eco-anxious rumination, emerged as the most central nodes in the network. Emotional/neutral coping showed the highest bridge expected influence, indicating a key role in linking epistemic processes with the core of eco-anxiety. Direct experience with climate-related events exhibited the largest effect sizes across all psychological domains, surpassing the effects of country and interaction terms. Overall, findings suggest that psychological responses to climate change are organized as an interdependent system with robust and comparable relational patterns across sociocultural contexts, highlighting the central role of coping strategies and lived climate experience in shaping climate-related distress.