Cognitive Abilities, Personality, and Sustainable Attitudes and Behavior

Climate change demands urgent action, yet individual engagement in sustainable behaviors remains inconsistent. We conducted two studies (N 1 = 280, N 2 = 973) examining how political orientation, personality traits, reasoning ability, social-emotional-behavioral skills, and complex problem solving relate to sustainable attitudes and behaviors in U.S. adults. Using structural equation modeling, we found that openness to experience was the strongest predictor, alongside liberal political orientation and self-perceived social engagement and innovation skills. Unexpectedly, both cognitive personality traits showed negative associations with sustainability outcomes, challenging the notion that cognitive abilities universally facilitate adaptive behavior. For sustainable behavior, these associations were small to moderate (−.25 ≤ r ≤ −.15) and most pronounced for food-related and engagement-related behaviors. Specification curve analyses confirmed that less established constructs (social, emotional, and behavioral skill self-concepts and complex problem solving) contributed meaningful variance beyond established personality predictors and that these associations were robust across analytical specifications. Overall, psychological characteristics together explained up to 44% of variance in sustainable attitudes and 29% of variance in sustainable behavior. These findings advance our understanding of the psychological underpinnings of environmental engagement and highlight the need for future research to clarify the mechanisms underlying the negative cognitive ability–sustainability association.