| 其他摘要 | With economic development and the improvement of national living standards, the amount of waste is increasing day by day, and the problem of waste surrounding cities is becoming increasingly serious. Nine departments, including the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Construction, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, jointly issued a notice in 2019, requiring cities at the prefecture level and above across the country to carry out work related to waste sorting. However, throughout the promulgation of the policy so far, the implementation of sorting in most areas has been unsatisfactory. Waste sorting is a behavior that requires the joint efforts of individuals and groups, and individual normative misperception (NM), i.e., the perceived deviation from the actual norms, is an important factor affecting behavior. According to the sorting of social norms, normative misperception is also divided into descriptive normative misperception and injunctive normative misperception. Descriptive normative misperception refers to a false perception of others' behavior, while injunctive normative misperception refers to a false perception of others' attitudes. Exploring the impact of normative misperception on waste sorting behavior can provide scientific support to promote residents' waste separation behavior.
Although the research potential of normative misperception on behavioral change is huge, for example, it has been found that people have normative misperception in drinking, water conservation, speeding, paying taxes, smoking and drug dependence, etc. there are fewer studies exploring how normative misperception affect waste sorting behaviors, and there is a gap in the mechanism of the influence of normative misperception on sorting behaviors. Meanwhile, most of the previous studies on normative misperception have used cross-sectional studies due to the limitation of time and conditions, and lacked the examination of longitudinal studies. This article examines the impact and mechanism of normative misperception on sorting behavior through two studies.
Study 1 conducted a longitudinal research on waste sorting demonstration community in Beijing in 2020 (Study 1a) and 2022 (Study 1b). The results show that descriptive normative misperception and injunctive normative misperception exist stably on the issue of waste sorting, i.e., people generally underestimate their participation in and support for others' waste sorting. Both normative misperception were also significantly negatively associated with waste sorting behavior, i.e., the more people underestimated others' sorting participation, the less they engaged in sorting behavior. Study 1 extends the theoretical system and application scenarios of normative misperception, and breaks through the limitations of previous cross-sectional studies.
Previous studies have shown that internal and external factors such as environmental knowledge and publicity information may influence pro-environmental behaviors, but most of the studies tend to be from a single perspective and have not constructed a unified theoretical framework to explore the mechanism of interaction between variables. Study 2 (N=1043) was based on the information-motivationbehavior skill model (IMB). The aim was to further investigate the mechanism of action of the two normative misperceptions affecting waste sorting behavior, as well as to explore the possible factors that reduce the normative misperceptions. The model involved four latent variables: normative misperceptions, publicity information, environmental knowledge, and waste sorting behavior. It was found that the greater the descriptive normative misperception, i.e., the more one underestimates the participation of others in waste sorting, the less one is likely to sort waste oneself, and the less one thinks one knows about sorting rules. Publicity information can reduce both the descriptive normative misperception and the imperative normative misperception, and the more publicity information related to waste sorting around one's surroundings, the less one underestimates others' participation in and support for waste sorting. Both environmental knowledge and publicity information can positively influence waste sorting behavior, i.e., the more publicity information about waste sorting around them, and the more they think they know the rules of waste sorting, the more likely they are to sort waste. At the same time, publicity information can also positively influence environmental knowledge, i.e., publicity information related to waste sorting can promote people's understanding of sorting.
The results of the mediation test found that environmental knowledge mediated between descriptive normative misperceptions and imperative normative misperceptions and waste sorting behavior. The greater the descriptive normative misperception, i.e., the more one underestimates the participation of others in waste sorting, the more one believes that one does not know how to sort, and thus the less waste sorting behavior. The greater the imperative normative misperception, i.e., the greater the underestimation of others' support for waste sorting, the greater the belief that one does not know how to sort, and thus the lower the waste sorting behavior.
In this paper, the normative underestimation misperception existing in waste sorting behavior and its robustness are verified for the first time through a tracking study of residents in a community, and the negative relationship between normative misperception and waste sorting behavior is verified. Secondly, based on the IMB model, the interactions between variables were analyzed by adding publicity information and environmental knowledge. The influence mechanism between normative misperception and waste sorting behavior was explored, as well as the possible variables affecting normative misperception, and the mechanisms by which normative misperceptions act on waste sorting behavior, and possible factors that reduce normative misperceptions. The gaps in the theory are filled and the application scenarios of the model are extended. It further explains why residents mostly support waste sorting but fail to act on the embarrassing status quo, and verifies the applicability of the theoretical model in this paper in the field of waste sorting, which is of practical significance. |
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