More than personality: How emotional intelligence moderates the association of personality traits and adolescents' pro-environmental behaviour

Abstract

Personality traits have been associated with adolescents' pro-environmental behaviour, but findings remain inconsistent. This variability suggests that the strength to which personality traits are associated to pro-environmental behaviour may be influenced by other psychological variables. This study explored whether emotional intelligence played a moderator role in the relationship between personality traits and pro-environmental behaviour in a sample of 1855 Portuguese adolescents (Mage = 14.52 years, SDage = 1.76 years, 49,2% female). Results showed that all personality traits, except neuroticism, were significantly positively associated with pro-environmental behaviour. Furthermore, emotional intelligence, defined as an individual's ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions both in themselves and others, moderated the relationship between extraversion and agreeableness and pro-environmental behaviour, such that higher emotional intelligence strengthened the positive association between these traits and adolescents' pro-environmental behaviour. These findings underscore the role of personality in shaping adolescents' pro-environmental tendencies and suggest that emotional intelligence may act as a useful psychological resource to enhance pro-environmental behaviour, particularly among more extraverted and agreeable youth.