Personality characteristics, nature relatedness and environmental moral reasoning as predictors of pro-environmental behavior of secondary school students

In the study, the relationship between the pro-environmental behaviors of secondary school students and their personality traits, the level of relatedness to nature and environmental moral reasoning were examined. The sample of the study consists of a total of 614 participants, of which 290 are girls and 322 are boys. Environmental Behavior Scale, Five Factor Personality Inventory, Relatedness to Nature Scale, Ecological Dilemmas Form and Demographic Information Form were used as data collection tools. Within the scope of the research, Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyzes were used by using IBM SPSS 26 program. Correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between pro-environmental behaviors and personality traits, relatedness to nature, and environmental moral reasoning. According to the results of the multiple regression analysis, conscientiousness, nature relatedness-self and anthropocentric environmental moral reasoning together predicted the general pro-environmental behavior; openness to experience, nature relatedness-perspective and nature relatedness-self, and anthropocentric and ecocentric environmental moral reasoning together predicted putting environmental knowledge into behavior; extraversion and openness to experience, nature relatedness-self and anthropocentric moral reasoning together predicted the behavior of informing the people about environmental problems, and conscientiousness, nature-relatedness-experience and nature-relatedness-perspective together predicted recycling at different levels. The findings obtained as a result of the analyzes were discussed within the framework of the literature.