Seeing the Threat: A Study on Climate Change Risk Perceptions and Pro‐Environmental Behaviour

ABSTRACT Climate change along with its consequences continues to threaten global markets, particularly developing countries. However, individuals often base their judgments on associative and affective processing rather than scientific reasoning. This is due to the role experiences have in invoking strong striking feelings that tend to be more dominant when processing. Moreover, prior research on climate change models often studied risk perception and behaviour independently despite overlapping themes and constructs. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive view of climate change risk perceptions and how they are translated to behaviour by expanding on prior models such as the climate change risk perception model, the cultural theory and the theory of planned behaviour. PLS‐SEM was used due to its powerful statistical approaches. Findings indicate that self‐efficacy, negative affect, and individualism positively influence climate change risk perception. Additionally, self‐efficacy and positive affect and risk perception were found to increase behavioural intentions. Findings also found risk perception to play a mediating role between psycho‐social dimensions and intention while perceived policy effectiveness plays a moderating role between intention and action. Furthermore, this study contributes theoretically by linking self‐efficacy, risk perception, and policy perceptions into an integrated framework and practically by offering pathways for communication and policy interventions that motivate meaningful climate action. Finally, future research should address methodological constraints, such as the reliance on non‐probability sampling, by adopting probability‐based methods to improve generalizability. It should also refine measurement tools, particularly cultural theory scales (e.g., hierarchicalism, fatalism), by developing items more consistent with grid/group dimensions.