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Profiling the “Pro‐Environmental Individual”: A Personality Perspective
Author(s) -
Markowitz Ezra M.,
Goldberg Lewis R.,
Ashton Michael C.,
Lee Kibeom
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00721.x
Subject(s) - openness to experience , psychology , personality , social psychology , big five personality traits , altruism (biology) , perspective (graphical) , creativity , sample (material) , developmental psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , chemistry , chromatography
There is considerable scientific interest in the psychological correlates of pro‐environmental behaviors. Much research has focused on demographic and social‐psychological characteristics of individuals who consistently perform such actions. Here, we report the results of 2 studies in which we explored relations between broad personality traits and pro‐environmental actions. Using a wide variety of behavior and personality measures, we consistently found moderate positive relations between Openness to Experience and pro‐environmental activities in both a community sample ( S tudy 1: N = 778) and an undergraduate student sample ( S tudy 2: N = 115). In S tudy 2, we showed that the effect of O penness on pro‐environmental behaviors was fully mediated by individuals’ environmental attitudes and connection to nature. Our findings suggest that high levels of aesthetic appreciation, creativity, and inquisitiveness, but not personality traits associated with altruism, may have motivated the performance of pro‐environmental actions among our respondents. Implications for intervention development are discussed.