Effects of Individualism, Collectivism, Materialism, and Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection on Environmental Consciousness and Pro-Environmental Consumption Behavior in Korea

So Yeon Cho and Joowon Jung ()
Additional contact information
So Yeon Cho: Department of Home Economic Education, Dongguk University, 30 Pildong-ro 1-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul 04620, Republic of Korea
Joowon Jung: Department of Home Economic Education, Dongguk University, 30 Pildong-ro 1-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul 04620, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Environmental consciousness is linked to pro-environmental consumption behavior; however, the consequences of variations in the level of environmental consciousness have not been fully investigated. Therefore, we evaluated differences in individualism, collectivism, materialism, willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental protection, and pro-environmental consumption between groups with varying levels of environmental consciousness. After evaluating the factors that differentiate these groups, we identified the determinants of pro-environmental consumption for each group. For the study, an online survey was conducted, including 472 adults aged 20–69 years. Groups with low and high levels of environmental consciousness differed significantly with respect to all factors except individualism. The group with a high environmental consciousness exhibited higher collectivism, WTP for environmental protection, and pro-environmental consumption behavior, and lower materialism than the group with a low environmental consciousness. For the group with low environmental consciousness, collectivism was the main factor affecting pro-environmental consumption behavior (i.e., purchase, use, and disposal). In the group with high environmental consciousness, WTP for environmental protection and collectivism were the main determinants of pro-environmental consumption behavior. These results provide a basis for a systematic approach to improve pro-environmental consumption behavior based on environmental consciousness.

Keywords: environmental consciousness; pro-environmental consumption behavior; individualism; collectivism; materialism; willingness to pay for environmental protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7596/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7596/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:9:p:7596-:d:1140138

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().