Questionable prospective associations between components of climate change awareness: A comment on Dong et al. (2026)

Based on mainly positive cross-lagged associations between components of climate change awareness in a cross-lagged panel network (CLPN) model, Dong et al. concluded that some of the components reinforced each other’s longitudinal development and that Attitude (i.e., sense of responsibility and willingness to make a positive impact on climate change) was a primary driver in the network. However, it is well known that cross-lagged effects may be spurious. Here, we fitted alternative models to the data and found discrepant positive and negative prospective associations depending on the analyzed model. Meta-analytic aggregations of these discrepant associations tended to be statistically non-significant. Hence, the findings by Dong et al. may have been spurious and their conclusions premature. It is important for researchers to bear in mind that correlations, including cross-lagged effects, in observational (i.e., non-experimental) data may be spurious in order not to overinterpret findings, something that may have happened to Dong et al. We recommend scrutinizing cross-lagged effects, in the CLPN or otherwise, by fitting alternative models to data and to base conclusions on an aggregation of the findings.