Unearthing the “Green” Personality Core Traits Predict Environmentally Friendly Behavior

Pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors show substantial individual differences, and exploring their predictors can help reveal the origins of pro-environmental behavior. Basic personality traits may provide a partial explanation, but it is unclear which personality traits are reliably associated with pro-environmental behaviors. This article uses a specific type of environmental behavior, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to clarify which personality correlates are most robustly associated with behavior, and to test mediation of those effects through attitudes. A large (N = 345) sample of United States adults representative in age, gender, and ethnicity completed the 100-item HEXACO personality inventory, a novel self-report measure of behaviors that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and scales of environmental and political attitudes. Accounting for demographics, emissions-reducing behaviors were most strongly predicted by Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, and these effects of personality...