Socio-Cultural Determinants and the Moderating Effect of Gender in Adopting Sustainable Consumption Behavior among University Students in Iran and Japan

Abstract

This article explores the underlying factors of sustainable consumption behavior. Survey data are employed to test the impacts of environmental attitude, knowledge, social awareness, perceived credibility of information sources, self-efficacy and gender on sustainable consumption patterns among samples of university students in Iran and Japan. This contributes to the scientific search for valid explanatory models that could be employed to foster lifestyle transformations towards sustainability. Our findings confirm positive relationship between self-efficacy, social awareness and sustainable consumption in both Japanese and Iranian samples. Other predicators did not have a consistent effect in both samples. This article also presents the results of moderated regression and discusses which impacts were moderated by gender. The discussion presents with interpretation of the findings and proposes possible alternative explanations.

Pro-Environmental Behaviour in the European Union Countries

“…The research of Otto and Kaiser [76] shows that individuals below 30 and between 60 and 69 years tend to act more ecologically than other age groups. The finding of Salehi et al [77] shows that environmental attitude is moderated by factors determined by gender, for example, Japanese female students have greater knowledge of climate changes than male students. Consequently, it can be assumed that:…”

The Association between Climate Change Exposure and Climate Change Worry among Israeli Adults: The Interplay of Risk Appraisal, Collective Efficacy, Age, and Gender

“…An explanation of our results may be related to the concept of "social role", which refers to different gender-based hierarchical standards within societies [50]. Diverse social roles and gender-related social norms engender distinct social encounters and expectations as individuals are socialized to fulfill these varied roles [51]. As a result, women's increased environmental engagement, elevated collective efficacy, and heightened climate change worry may stem from traditional gender roles and socialization patterns.…”

Factors Influencing Sustainable Development Literacy among Engineering Undergraduates in China: Based on the College Impact Model

“…Synthesizing the above established studies, this study argues that sustainable development literacy, a key learning outcome for engineering undergraduates, may differ by student gender, particularly in terms of different college experiences and engagement in sustainable development learning processes. In the engineering education and sustainable development education literature, gender has emerged as an important factor influencing student achievement of learning outcomes, and studies have been conducted on gender as the moderator of the relationship between environment attitude and undergraduates' behavior [61]. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis: H3.…”