Rational Choice or Altruism Factor: Determinants of Residents’ Behavior toward Household Waste Separation in Xi’an, China

Zhaoyun Yin and Jing Ma ()
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Zhaoyun Yin: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Jing Ma: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Understanding why people do or do not perform household waste separation is a vital premise for designing relevant policies to promote waste management. As such, in this paper, an empirical study was carried out to explore the impacts of both rational choice and altruism factors on residents’ household waste separation behavior. Through the analysis of the survey sample ( n = 1102) from Xi’an, China, using structural equation modeling, the main findings suggested that (i) the rational choice model can better explain such behavior, (ii) the altruism factor cannot directly affect household waste separation behavior, (iii) the altruism factor is highly correlated with the attitude determinant of household waste separation behavior, and (iv) rational choice models incorporating the altruism factor may have better explanatory efficacy. After that, some factors influencing residents’ altruism to household waste separation were identified. The main aim of this study was to compare two different tendencies in explaining sustainable behavior and help to find a better framework for behavior analysis.

Keywords: rational choice; altruism factor; household waste separation; behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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