Relations among Pro-Environmental Behavior, Environmental Knowledge, Environmental Perception, and Post-Materialistic Values in China

Abstract

During the economic boom, China’s government was mainly concerned with economic development; however, numerous environmental problems have arisen. Evidence suggests that Chinese individuals’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB) is at a low level in Asia. However, it does not match their high-quality environmental knowledge. In this paper, the database of the Chinese General Social Survey was used to explore the correlation between environmental knowledge and PEB in a broader context. Subsequently, environmental perception and post-materialistic values (PMV) were taken as the mediator and moderator into structural equation modeling, and every variable kept robust and consistent through exploratory factor analysis. The empirical results indicated that: (i) individuals with higher environmental knowledge always show higher passion to PEB; (ii) environmental perception plays a partially mediating role between environmental knowledge and PEB; (iii) PMV moderate the formation of environmental behavior systematically; and (iv) compared with public counterpart, the relation between environmental knowledge and PEB is significantly higher in private environmental behavior. The study results could become the basis for the Chinese government and environmental NGOs to effectively spread environmental knowledge, advocate a post-materialistic lifestyle, and improve the authenticity of online media reports on environmental issues.

The Perception of Environmental Information Disclosure on Rural Residents’ Pro-Environmental Behavior

“…The influencing factors at the micro level are mostly concentrated on environmental knowledge [9,[28][29][30], environmental perception [7,9,31,32], environmental protection attitudes [31,33,34], theory of planned behavior (TPB) [35][36][37] and personal habits [37].…”

“…Furthermore, research has shown that the association between environmental knowledge and PEB is substantially more robust in private environmental behaviors than in their public counterparts [28]. Residents' perceptions of sustainability-related climate directly impact on their participation in PEB [9]. In particular, the positive thoughts of homemakers about perceived behavioral control have a positive effect on guiding their recycling behaviors [32].…”

“…Most researchers show that micro perception and PEB have a positive relationship [6,7]. Some scholars believe that individuals with greater environmental knowledge are more enthusiastic about PEB [8,9].…”

Climate change and pro-environmental behaviours: the significant environmental challenges of livelihoods

“…On the other hand, the students' subjective norm and perceived behavioural control are positively and significantly associated with their PEIs. Recently, in China, during the economic boom period, environmental perception has a partial mediating role between environmental knowledge and PEB (Xie and Lu, 2022). Similarly, the factors such as awareness, attitudes and norms are robust predictors of intention to engage in post-consumer plastic packaging activity (Widayat et al, 2022).…”

Impact of Education for Sustainable Development on Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in Protected Areas

“…Environmental knowledge directly promotes environmental behavior [ 22 ], or indirectly drives behavior through environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions [ 23 ]. For a specific country, the relevance between environmental knowledge and environmental behavior might change with individual demographic characteristics [ 24 ]. Based on this, the H1 hypothesis is proposed:…”