Environmentalism and Personality Simon Cohen Jeff Edgar Chris Latham-Warde Sanni Kujala

Two Studies Hirsh, J.B. & Dolderman, D. (2007). Personality predictors of Consumerism and Environmentalism: A preliminary study. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, Hirsh, J.B. (2010). Personality and Environmental Concern. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30,

Personality predictors of Consumerism and Environmentalism - Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007 Environmentalism compassion, social concern, a broader self- concept Consumerism selfishness, possessiveness, accumulation of material possessions Is there a link between these two values and the Big Five personality domains? Hirsh, J.B. & Dolderman, D. (2007). Personality predictors of Consumerism and Environmentalism: A preliminary study. Personality and Individual Differences, 43,

Personality predictors of Consumerism and Environmentalism - Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007 Do we adopt personal values that are compatible with our traits? Research suggests there is a relationship with Schwartz's value domains and the Big Five (Oliver & Mooradian, 2003) Assessment of participants' personality, consumer goals, and environmental attitudes o New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) - concern over environmental issues o Ecological Self Scale - sense of personal connection to the environment o Consumer Values Orientation Scale - value of material possessions o Behavioural Goals - either consumerist or pro-environmental behaviours o Big Five Inventory (BFI) - measure of Big Five personality traits Oliver, J.M. & Mooradian, T.A. (2003). Personality traits and personal values: A conceptual and empirical investigation. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 109– 125.

Results Participants: 106 undergraduate students (74 female) Measures of Environmentalism and Consumerism were internally consistent Principal component analysis was used to produce composite Environmental and Consumer variables No significant gender differences in composite measures of Environmentalism or Consumerism

Results Correlations Between Composite Variables and Personality Traits Consumerism and Agreeableness: r = Environmentalism and Agreeableness: r = 0.33 Environmentalism and Openness: r = 0.24

Discussion Discussion of the Data Low Agreeableness tends to be associated with self focus. High Agreeableness tends to be associated with empathic concern. Agreeableness and Openness predict different parts of the total variance of environmentalism.

Discussion Limitations of the Study No demographic variables were examined. No real world behaviour observed. No causal relationships established.

Personality and Environmental Concern Jacob Hirsh, 2010

A follow-up study... Previous study investigated both Consumerism and Environmentalism Positively linked Environmentalism with Agreeableness and Openness This follow-up study focusses on the personality traits associated with environmental concern Hypothesis: Agreeableness and Openness will remain significant predictors of increased environmental concern

Elaborating on the previous study... Larger Sample Size (n=2690) Increased Age Range (26 to 93 years) Less Imbalanced Gender Distribution (47% male and 53% female) Different Nationality Wider Social Grouping (not just undergraduate students) - Enables the study of Demographic Variables

Methods Measuring personality: 15 item version of the Big Five Inventory (completed by participants in 2005) Measuring environmental concern: Responses to measures in studies spanning There was a focus on 3 measures: 1. Environmentally Concious 2. Importance of Environmental Protection 3. Worried about Environment

Results Latent environmental concern factor was strongly related to each environmental factor: o "importance of environmental protection" - β = 0.94 o "worried about environment" - β = 0.64 o "environmentally conscious" - β = 0.62

Results Environmental concern was in turn predicted by individual differences in the Big 5 personality traits: Agreeableness - β =.22 Openness - β =.20 Neuroticism - β =.16 Conscientiousness - β =.07 Extraversion - β =.02

Discussion Confirmed previous research that higher levels of Agreeableness and Openness are related to greater environmental concern (Hirsh and Dolderman, 2007) o Increased robustness due to such varied samples: adult vs student population, German vs Canadian Higher levels of Neuroticism associated with higher levels of environmental concern o Individuals tend to be more worried about negative outcomes in general o More an egoistic form of environmental concern as opposed to altruistic

Discussion Consciousness had a small but statistically significant effect on environmental concern o Possibly more likely to follow social guidelines and norms for appropriate environmental action

Limitations Shortened 15 item BFI-S doesn't allow for assessment of lower-order personality traits o Some aspects of each Big 5 domain might relate more strongly than others o Also means the answers did not reflect a comprehensive coverage of the entire domain of environmental attitudes