A climate action intervention boosts key psychological drivers, increasing climate advocacy, sustainable eating and supporting education behaviours

Abstract In this study, we tested whether a longitudinal intervention aiming to increase key psychological correlates of pro-environmental behaviour motivated Italian university students to take climate action. For six weeks, we exposed participants to in-person interactive lessons and activities that were developed from existing psychological theories and interventions. The goal was to increase pro-climate behaviour by using 12 psychological correlates such as beliefs, attitudes and affect. Before and after the intervention, participants completed surveys measuring the psychological correlates and reported individual and collective pro-climate behaviours via ecological momentary assessment. The study included a control group. The results revealed that 10 of the 12 psychological correlates successfully increased, and six remained high after three months. Advocacy and sustainable food consumption increased in the experimental group compared to the control group from before to right after the intervention. Education behaviours started high for both groups, probably owing to motivation bias, but remained high only for the experimental group until three months after the intervention. The behavioural effects were predicted by different combinations of the psychological correlates of emotional engagement, self-efficacy, collective efficacy, theory of change, collective identity and cognitive alternatives. Additionally, the participants’ ability to turn their climate education and civic participation plans into real actions (plan–action alignment) increased after three months.