Management School, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 18;17(10):3525. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103525.
It is well known that environmental protection behaviors are influenced by both individual internal motivation and external environmental pressure, but few studies have looked at the two kinds of factors together. In order to study the influence mechanism of these two kinds of factors on the environmental protection behavior of urban residents, especially the difference between these two kinds of factors, we take personal norms and social norms as independent variables into the theoretical model. Results based on survey data of 731 urban residents revealed that personal norms and social norms both are positively associated with environmental protection behavior. Moreover, environmental protection willingness was found to mediate the relationship of personal and social norms with environmental protection behavior. We also found that the direct and indirect influences of personal norms on environmental protection behavior are greater than that of social norms. Further, the study revealed that cost consciousness moderates the relationship between personal norms, environmental protection willingness, and environmental protection behavior. Our results suggest that personal norms have a greater impact on environmental protection behavior than social norms. Therefore, we need to make greater efforts to promote environmental education and cultivate young people's sense of environmental responsibility from an early age. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain appropriate environmental pressure and reduce the environmental cost in the daily life of residents.
众所周知，环境保护行为既受到个体内部动机的影响，也受到外部环境压力的影响，但很少有研究同时考虑这两种因素。为了研究这两种因素对城市居民环境保护行为的影响机制，特别是这两种因素之间的差异，我们将个人规范和社会规范作为自变量纳入理论模型。基于对 731 名城市居民的调查数据的结果表明，个人规范和社会规范都与环境保护行为呈正相关。此外，研究还发现环境保护意愿在个人规范和社会规范与环境保护行为之间起中介作用。我们还发现，个人规范对环境保护行为的直接和间接影响大于社会规范。此外，研究还揭示了成本意识对个人规范、环境保护意愿和环境保护行为之间关系的调节作用。我们的研究结果表明，个人规范对环境保护行为的影响大于社会规范。因此，我们需要加大力度，从青少年时期就开始进行环境教育，培养他们的环境责任感。同时，有必要在居民的日常生活中保持适当的环境压力并降低环境成本。
