Personality traits and pro-environmental tendencies -- book chapter

In this chapter, I discuss the associations between pro-environmental tendencies and personality traits, as outlined in the Big Five and HEXACO models. I review findings showing tight links between core personality characteristics and pro-environmentalism, and also report re-analyses of published data examining the extent to which country-level indicators moderate personality–environmentalism correlations, as well as novel data examining these associations at the personality nuances level. Openness to Experience was the personality trait consistently found to display positive correlations with pro-environmental tendencies—not only at the highest domain level but also at the facet and nuance levels. To a lesser degree, both Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness show positive correlations with attitudes and behaviours related to protection of the natural environment. Openness–attitude associations were stronger in countries with below-median levels of environmental performance, and Openness–behaviour associations were stronger in countries with above-median levels of Individualism. I conclude that there is an ample support for pro-environmental tendencies as a reflection of people's core personality traits, and provide an agenda for future research on this topic.