1. Nature conservation often depends on the behaviour of individuals, which can bedriven by socio-psychological factors such as a person's attitude, knowledge andidentity. Despite extensive ecological research about pollinator declines, there hasbeen almost no social research assessing the drivers of people's engagement inpollinator conservation.2. To address this gap, we used a large-scale, online questionnaire in the UnitedKingdom, broadly framed around the Theory of Planned Behaviour. We received atotal of 1,275 responses from a wide range of ages, incomes and education levels,despite a selection bias towards people with a pre-existing interest in pollinators.3. A range of socio-psychological factors predicted people's pollinator conservation actions and explained 45% of the variation. Respondents’ diversity of natureinteractions and perceived behavioural control (feeling able to help pollinators)were consistently important predictors of people's pollinator conservation actions, whilst the importance of other socio-psychological factors depended onthe particular action.4. Notably, knowledge was far less important overall than people's perceptions andother socio-psychological factors, highlighting a knowledge-action gap. Furtherunexplained variation in people's behaviour could partly be due by structural andcontextual factors, particularly regarding social norms around tidiness.5. From a practical perspective, our findings reveal three main insights. First, several simple, low-cost pollinator conservation actions (reduced mowing, leavingareas unmown and creating patches of bare ground for ground-nesting bees)are currently under-utilised so should be priorities for pollinator conservationprogrammes.6. Second, strategies are needed to overcome reported practical barriers, for example by providing free resources (e.g. seeds of pollen- and nectar-rich plants) andcommunicating simple beneficial actions that can be carried out with limited time,space and money
