World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology
Generalized beliefs about the world—termed ‘primal world beliefs’ or ‘primals’—have been hypothesized to affect behavior, since they contain information which influences the perceived costs, benefits, and justifications for different behaviors. For example, people who see the world as highly improva...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Global Environmental Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5964/gep.12057 |
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| author | Janna Hämpke Nicholas Kerry Jeremy D. W. Clifton |
| author_facet | Janna Hämpke Nicholas Kerry Jeremy D. W. Clifton |
| author_sort | Janna Hämpke |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Generalized beliefs about the world—termed ‘primal world beliefs’ or ‘primals’—have been hypothesized to affect behavior, since they contain information which influences the perceived costs, benefits, and justifications for different behaviors. For example, people who see the world as highly improvable may view prosocial behaviors as having more benefits and therefore be more inclined to work harder on making things better. Three preregistered studies (N = 1,534 US participants) investigated the relationship between primals and several measures of people’s propensity toward sustainable behavior. Beliefs that the world is less hierarchical, but more improvable, cooperative, harmless, meaningful, and abundant were weakly to moderately associated with self-reported ethically-minded consumer behavior, pro-environmental behavior, and behavioral intentions. These relationships were largely robust to controlling for Big Five traits and political ideology, although some of the relationships were subsumed by the more general belief that the world is good. Changes in two world beliefs (cooperative, harmless) over a three-week period weakly predicted pro-environmental behavior intentions when controlling for people’s previously reported pro-environmental behavior. These correlational findings suggest some possible avenues for future research: if these beliefs are found to be causally prior to environmental attitudes, they may offer a promising target for interventions aimed at increasing sustainable behavior. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ba0e04dcda5e478b80b4fa24cbb4e9cc |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2750-6630 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Global Environmental Psychology |
| spelling | doaj-art-ba0e04dcda5e478b80b4fa24cbb4e9cc2025-08-20T02:15:52ZengPsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for PsychologyGlobal Environmental Psychology2750-66302025-02-01310.5964/gep.12057gep.12057World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political IdeologyJanna Hämpke0https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6407-201XNicholas Kerry1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7413-4691Jeremy D. W. Clifton2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3185-3105Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, PA, USAPositive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, PA, USAPositive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, PA, USAGeneralized beliefs about the world—termed ‘primal world beliefs’ or ‘primals’—have been hypothesized to affect behavior, since they contain information which influences the perceived costs, benefits, and justifications for different behaviors. For example, people who see the world as highly improvable may view prosocial behaviors as having more benefits and therefore be more inclined to work harder on making things better. Three preregistered studies (N = 1,534 US participants) investigated the relationship between primals and several measures of people’s propensity toward sustainable behavior. Beliefs that the world is less hierarchical, but more improvable, cooperative, harmless, meaningful, and abundant were weakly to moderately associated with self-reported ethically-minded consumer behavior, pro-environmental behavior, and behavioral intentions. These relationships were largely robust to controlling for Big Five traits and political ideology, although some of the relationships were subsumed by the more general belief that the world is good. Changes in two world beliefs (cooperative, harmless) over a three-week period weakly predicted pro-environmental behavior intentions when controlling for people’s previously reported pro-environmental behavior. These correlational findings suggest some possible avenues for future research: if these beliefs are found to be causally prior to environmental attitudes, they may offer a promising target for interventions aimed at increasing sustainable behavior.https://doi.org/10.5964/gep.12057sustainable behaviorprimal world beliefsprimalspro-environmental behaviorethical-minded consumer behavior |
| spellingShingle | Janna Hämpke Nicholas Kerry Jeremy D. W. Clifton World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology Global Environmental Psychology sustainable behavior primal world beliefs primals pro-environmental behavior ethical-minded consumer behavior |
| title | World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology |
| title_full | World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology |
| title_fullStr | World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology |
| title_full_unstemmed | World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology |
| title_short | World Beliefs Predict Self-Reported Sustainable Behaviors Beyond Big Five Personality Traits and Political Ideology |
| title_sort | world beliefs predict self reported sustainable behaviors beyond big five personality traits and political ideology |
| topic | sustainable behavior primal world beliefs primals pro-environmental behavior ethical-minded consumer behavior |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5964/gep.12057 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jannahampke worldbeliefspredictselfreportedsustainablebehaviorsbeyondbigfivepersonalitytraitsandpoliticalideology AT nicholaskerry worldbeliefspredictselfreportedsustainablebehaviorsbeyondbigfivepersonalitytraitsandpoliticalideology AT jeremydwclifton worldbeliefspredictselfreportedsustainablebehaviorsbeyondbigfivepersonalitytraitsandpoliticalideology |