Imbact of Youths' Climate Change Beliefs on Household Engagement in Enery-Conservation Behavior: The Chain Mediating Mechanism of Environmental Concernsand Low-Carbon Behavior Importance Cognition
Global climate change poses a serious threat to the survival and sustainable development of human beings. Around how to improve household energy saving behavior, domestic and foreign scholars mostly study from the psychological level of adults, the social characteristics of consumers, the external social environment of low-carbon consumption, national policies and other aspects, but ignore the psychological level of teenagers. From a psychological perspective, climate change perception (climate change beliefs, attributions, concerns) is a key factor in individual climate mitigation actions. The future state of our ecological environment will be determined by the climate change perception of the adolescent community and the environmental action taken accordingly. In the whole society to advocate the formation of frugality, green and low-carbon lifestyle, saving energy will not only enable the family members themselves have a positive sense of environmental responsibility to show, it will also make their due contribution to energy conservation and emission reduction. However, research focusing on the impact of adolescents' climate change perceptions on household energy conservation behavior is limited. Therefore, this study focused on the pro-environment behavior theory to explore the relationship between adolescents' perception of climate change and household energy saving behavior.
In the study of adolescents' perception of climate change and household energy saving behavior, this study mainly involves three research questions. The first study is to conduct a preliminary exploratory study on whether adolescents' perception of climate change can promote their own energy saving behavior, and verify the psychological mechanism of environmental concern and awareness of the importance of low-carbon behavior. The second study focuses on whether the influence of adolescents' perception of climate change on their own energy saving behavior is stable over time. The third study focuses on whether adolescents' perception of climate change can influence their parents' energy saving behavior by influencing their parents' awareness of the importance of environmental care and low-carbon behavior. The three studies conducted a carbon neutral knowledge and practice survey on some teenagers and their parents in Beijing respectively, and collected valid samples of 2444, 723 and 447 people respectively. SPSS 26.0 software and Process plug-in were used for data analysis after data collection, and descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient analysis and regression analysis were conducted for variables.
This study systematically explores the relationship between adolescents' perception of climate change and household energy saving behavior. The results show that: (1) Adolescents' belief in climate change and concern about climate change can both positively predict adolescents' energy saving behavior. (2) Environmental concern and awareness of the importance of low-carbon behavior mediate the effects of adolescents' climate change beliefs and concerns on their own energy saving behaviors. (3) Adolescents' belief in climate change can directly predict their own energy saving behavior, but the direct prediction effect of climate change worry on their own energy saving behavior is not significant. (4) The intertemporal mediating effects of environmental concern and awareness of the importance of low-carbon behavior on adolescents' belief in climate change and concern about climate change on their own energy saving behavior. (5) Adolescent climate change beliefs have a significant chain mediating effect on parents' energy saving behavior. (6) Adolescent climate change attribution and concern have no significant impact on parents' energy saving behavior.
Based on the above research conclusions, the government and education departments should encourage young people to form a correct understanding of climate change, enhance their awareness of energy saving and social responsibility, develop the habit of energy saving, and influence families and other groups in society to pay attention to climate change and participate in energy saving actions through their actions.
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