Psychological foundations of climate action

Understanding the psychology of climate action requires moving beyond understanding individual sustainable behaviours. The acceptance of climate policies and political participation represent important system-level aspects of behaviour, and scholars have speculated about whether these different behaviours may have a common root cause. This contribution addresses this question and i) shows that a general, trait-like readiness to act against climate change underlies these behaviours (N = 6,041); ii) it assesses its predictors, such as perceived health risks, trust in institutions, social norms, perceived effectiveness of political measures, self-efficacy and knowledge (sub-sample n = 4,065); iii) bridges climate-related and behavioural science by providing high-quality psychological measures for all components of the model; and iv) demonstrates the validity of the proposed readiness-to-act model and reveals its power and superiority over previous models in predicting actual behaviour (N = 877). It yields theoretical and conceptual advances regarding how to understand and advance climate action.