The Role of Personality in the Adoption of Pro-Environmental Behaviors through the Lens of the Value-Belief-Norm Theory

The present study investigated citizens' self-reported pro-environmental behaviors by adopting a survey and bootstrapping via structural equation modeling for five different personality traits. Adopting one traditional psycho-social theory, this study investigates how motivations, values, intentions, norms, and behaviors are connected by using different constructs from the value-belief-norm theory extended with external influences and three different pro-environmental behaviors, namely, waste preventer, green consumer, and avoider, and how the connections change between different personality traits from the Big Five personality test, namely, openness, extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, and consciousness. According to this study, personal conscience may inspire environmentally beneficial behaviors like green purchasing and waste reduction when appealing to the emotions of the general public. As a result, strengthening the population's subjective norms requires interventions that concentrate on communication tactics to raise knowledge of penalties and obligations for communal advantages.

Automated summary

The present study used a survey and structural equation modeling to investigate citizens' self-reported pro-environmental behaviors based on five personality traits. The study focused on the connections between motivations, values, intentions, norms, and behaviors using constructs from the value-belief-norm theory and explored how these connections varied across different personality traits. The findings suggest that personal conscience can inspire environmentally beneficial behaviors, such as green purchasing and waste reduction, by appealing to the emotions of the general public, and interventions focusing on communication tactics are needed to strengthen subjective norms.