Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior in Environmental Science: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Since the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was proposed by Ajzen in 1985, it has attracted extensive interest and been widely applied worldwide. Although an increasing number of studies have employed the TPB in the domain of environmental science, there have been no attempts to retrospectively analyze existing articles. The current study aimed to holistically understand the application status of the TPB in environmental science from a knowledge domain visualization perspective. A total of 531 journal articles were obtained through the Scopus database to perform a bibliometric analysis and content analysis. The results showed that waste management, green consumption, climate and environment, saving and conservation, and sustainable transportation are the primary research topics; the United States (U.S.), Mainland China, the United Kingdom (UK), and Malaysia are the most productive countries/regions. Moreover, the cross-disciplinary situations, main source journals, and key articles were revealed. Furthermore, the extended factors, integrated theories, major methods, specific groups, and control variables of environmental science research using the TPB were elaborated and integrated into a comprehensive application framework. Constructive criticisms were ultimately discussed. The findings contribute in several ways to help relevant researchers learn about the application of TPB to environmental science and provide new insights and holistic references for further research on environment-related behavior.

Links between green space and public health: a bibliometric review of global research trends and future prospects from 1901 to 2019

“…Additionally, all keywords (including author keywords and keyword plus) extracted from a large number of pieces of literature by CiteSpace software were conducted to content analysis (Si et al 2019). There were two main steps employed in the content analysis of keywords to provide critical reviews.…”

Assessing the determinants of intentions and behaviors of organizations towards a circular economy for plastics

“…Despite some criticism and several competing behavioral models, the TPB model is still regarded as the most effective model for designing behavioral interventions ( Yuriev et al., 2020 ). Therefore, researchers have been increasingly employing the TPB model across various disciplines including environmental science and sustainability management ( Daddi et al., 2018 ; Si et al., 2019 ).…”

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Beliefs

“…However, especially in the field of environmental science, TPB is increasingly being advocated as a key theory for predicting and promoting a variety of Pro-Environmental Behaviors [22]. According to the study in [35] the primary research topics where TPB is applied are: waste management, green consumption, climate and environment, saving and conservation, and sustainable transportation. Previous literature dealing with TPB in the environment discourse has demonstrated that Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Perceived Behavioral Control play key roles in shaping the Intention to engage in Pro-Environmental Behaviors [9] and such mechanisms can be further reinforced by people's moral obligation to perform PEB [36].…”