The Influence of Place Attachment on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: The Moderating Effect of Social Media

Jian Xu and Ruixia Han
Additional contact information
Jian Xu: School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China
Ruixia Han: School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan RD, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: China is facing tremendous pressure to improve the environment. How to promote pro-environmental behaviors at the individual level is an important research topic. This study examines the relationship between social media usage, place attachment, and pro-environmental behavior based on a survey of 550 Chinese citizens. The results show that: (1) Place attachment and social media usage for environmental information acquisition have positive correlations with pro-environmental behaviors; (2) social media usage for environmental information acquisition moderates the relationship between place attachment and pro-environmental behaviors. Our survey also finds that social media play a more important role than traditional media in influencing pro-environmental behaviors. Our findings indicate that social media is changing the traditional relationship between place attachment and pro-environmental behavior. We should pay more attention to this positive role of social media and encourage citizens’ pro-environmental behavior.

Keywords: social media; place attachment; pro-environmental behavior; moderating effect; environmental governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5100/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/5100/ (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:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:24:p:5100-:d:297792

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

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