ABSTRACT

Over the past century, the planet’s average temperature has risen rapidly. Climate change is a real and progressing problem. However, we consistently see in our daily lives that people’s behavior and choices are short-sighted and not sustainable in transport, housing, food, and material consumption. Individuals’ values often drive sustainable behaviors and improve environmental outcomes. However, values are relatively abstract and stable, which may limit intervention potential. We demonstrate that a more concrete construct—consumer wisdom (CW)—better predicts sustainable behavior and can be experimentally manipulated. In three studies (cumulative N = 1,881), we find that CW is more strongly associated with self-reported pro-environmental behaviors than biospheric value orientations and mediates the relationship between biospheric values and self-reported pro-environmental behavior. Initial evidence suggests that CW can be momentarily enhanced and may indirectly influence pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern. Results demonstrate the relevance of a novel construct—consumer wisdom—to the domain of pro-environmental behavior.