How Does Social Interaction Affect Pro-Environmental Behaviors in China? The Mediation Role of Conformity

Abstract

Environmental problems rooted in human behaviors have been the major obstacles to sustainable development in many countries. The promotion of residents’ pro-environmental behaviors may serve to mitigate environmental problems. In this paper, we understand residents’ pro-environmental behaviors from the perspective of social interaction. We distinguish between low-cost and high-cost pro-environmental behaviors and analyze to what extent social interaction may affect the two types of pro-environmental behaviors and whether conformity plays a mediation role, using the Chinese General Social Survey in 2013. We find that frequent social interaction increases residents’ low-cost pro-environmental behaviors but decreases residents’ high-cost pro-environmental behaviors. Conformity has no mediation role for low-cost pro-environmental behaviors but has a full mediation role for high-cost pro-environmental behaviors. We conclude that residents have a strong tendency to conform to the behavioral patterns of the social majority when such conformity can save their time, effort, or financial cost. To promote residents’ pro-environmental behaviors, their enforcement cost for the residents should be taken into account and adaptive policy instruments should be developed for different types of pro-environmental behaviors.