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

Jingjing Zeng, Meiquan Jiang and Meng Yuan
Additional contact information
Jingjing Zeng: Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China
Meiquan Jiang: Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China
Meng Yuan: Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-18

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.

Keywords: environmental risk perception; cultural theory of risk; pro-environmental behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/5/1750/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/5/1750/ (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:17:y:2020:i:5:p:1750-:d:329815

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 ().