Environmental Attitudes Outweigh Personality in Predicting Pro-Environmental Behaviour: An Investigation of the Dark and Light Triads

Identifying predictors of pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) is critical for designing effective interventions to reduce environmentally harmful activities. This study examined whether personality traits, specifically the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy) and Light Triad (Kantianism, humanism, faith in humanity), and environmental attitudes, predicted PEB. Australian participants (N = 383) completed an online survey assessing these personality traits, environmental attitudes, and two measures of PEB: dietary behaviour (meat consumption) and willingness to donate to an environmental charity. Analyses using hierarchical regressions and MANOVAs indicated that only narcissism and psychopathy modestly reduced donation likelihood and Kantianism modestly increased it; however, there was limited evidence of mediation by environmental attitudes between personality traits and PEB. In contrast, stronger environmental activism and lower human dominance attitudes robustly predicted both lower meat consumption and greater donation likelihood. These findings suggest that although personality shapes environmental attitudes, the attitudes themselves play a more direct role in driving PEB. Overall, the results support attitude-behaviour models and highlight attitudinal change as a pathway for designing effective sustainability interventions.