Environmental Risk Perception, Risk Culture, and Pro-Environmental Behavior.

Jingjing Zeng,Meiquan Jiang,Meng Yuan

doi:10.3390/ijerph17051750

Abstract

Mixed evidence exists regarding the relationship between environmental risk perception and pro-environmental behavior. This study uses an existing online survey conducted by the Center of Ecological Civilization (CEC) of China University of Geosciences from December 2015 to March 2016 and examines how cultural bias influences environmental risk perception and behavior. We found that an individual’s pro-environmental behavior is not only influenced by environmental risk perception, but also by his or her cultural worldviews. Built on culture theory (CT), our empirical results suggest that young Chinese people are more located in “high-group” culture, where egalitarian culture and hierarchical culture dominate. The higher scores of hierarchical and egalitarian cultures of Chinese youth, the more likely they are to protect the environment. Moreover, the relationship between cultural worldviews and pro-environmental behaviors are mediated by perceived environmental risks.

Highlights

Environmental problems have become a serious social risk that need to be urgently solved all over the world
Multiple linear regression methods were used to explore the relationship between individual environmental risk perception and pro-environmental behavior
The dependent variable in model 1 is risk perception, and model 1 was used to test the effect of culture worldviews on environmental risk perception

Summary

Introduction

Environmental problems have become a serious social risk that need to be urgently solved all over the world. Environmental risk perception stimulates people’s sense of urgency and responsibility to protect the environment and encourages more environmental protection behaviors [1,2,8]. Other scholars have found that there is a discrepancy between environmental risk perception and environmental protection behaviors [9,10]. Individuals who possess the same level of perceived environmental risk can have inconsistent behaviors in environmental protection [11,12]. Existing research mainly built on the rational choice model (RCM) or relied on individual cost-benefit analysis [12,13].

Methods

Results

Conclusion