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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1404095
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change Challenge: Adaptation to Climate Change View all 15 articles

Explorers are greener? Investigating the role of personality traits, connectedness to nature and attitudes toward exploring in various proenvironmental behaviors

Provisionally accepted
Veronica Muffato Veronica Muffato 1*Laura Miola Laura Miola 2Francesca Pazzaglia Francesca Pazzaglia 2Chiara Meneghetti Chiara Meneghetti 2
  • 1 Department of general Psychology, University of Padova, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
  • 2 Department of General Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Previous research has suggested that individual characteristics, such as personality traits, are crucial for pro-environmental behaviors. However, the joint role of more specific environment-related individual dispositions on various pro-environmental behaviors has not yet been investigated and is the aim of this study. A total of 649 adults (18-59 years old) assessed their pro-environmental behaviors, personality traits, the connectedness to nature, attitudes toward exploration, and spatial anxiety. Personality traits (openness and conscientiousness) were related to some of the pro-environment behaviors (transportations and purchasing). Connectedness to nature was the factor most associated with the pro-environment behaviors (conservation, citizenship, purchasing). Moreover, newly we showed that attitudes toward exploration were associated with citizenship and purchasing behaviors. Overall, the results newly highlighted the importance of environment-related characteristics alongside general personality traits. Fostering environmental-related personality factors, such as connection to nature and attitudes towards exploration, may drive positive environmental action, suggesting novel approaches to build a more sustainable society.

    Keywords: pro-environmental behavior, personality traits, connectedness to nature, exploration, wayfinding

    Received: 20 Mar 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Muffato, Miola, Pazzaglia and Meneghetti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Veronica Muffato, Department of general Psychology, University of Padova, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

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