Exploring farmers’ climate change adaptation decisions in the Southern United States through an empirical comparison of the theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory

This study empirically analyzed the psychological factors of farmers’ adaptation to weather shocks by comparing the predictive power of two widely applied theoretical frameworks in climate science research—i.e., theory of planned behavior (TPB) and protection motivation theory (PMT). Climate adaptation behaviors were divided into incremental and transformative strategies. Survey data were collected from a sample ( N = 69) of field crop farmers in the southern United States between May and December 2022, and Weighted Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (WPLS-SEM) was used to assess the explanatory and predictive power of the TPB and PMT. Our results indicated that attitudes, norms, and self-efficacy are strong predictors of farmers’ incremental adaptation intentions and behaviors. The results of TPB and PMT models demonstrated strong explanatory power for adaptation intention (R 2 = 0.706 and 0.671, respectively), and the TPB exhibited greater explanatory power in our study than PMT in explaining incremental adaptation to climate change. Nevertheless, the predictive power of both frameworks was limited in explaining transformative adaptation behaviors. We discussed the implications of this study for the formulation and design of future climate change adaptation programs in agriculture. Additionally, our study advanced the Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development (PSSD) agenda by highlighting the need to integrate individual-level behavioral models with broader systemic perspectives to fully understand and support transformative adaptation in agriculture.