Values, NEP, And ELOC As Antecedents Of Pro-environmental Behaviors

In today’s world, more and more people have realized that human behaviors are harming the ecological environment. Environmental problems have become an important social problem. For the past40years, psychologists have attempted to find out the driving factors of pro-environmental behaviors, and many theories and models have been proposed. Value-basis theory model fully absorbed the abundant social psychology research achievements on values, attitudes and pro-social behaviors. On the basis of a number of crosswise and vertical studies, this model has been constantly enriched and developed. Meanwhile, it would provide new probability for the psychological research of pro-environmental behaviors.Based on the value-basis theory model, in order to explore the relationships of research variables and socio-demographic characteristics, research the mediating effect of NEP between values and pro-environmental behaviors, and test the moderating effect of ELOC between NEP and pro-environmental behaviors, a two-page questionnaire was developed to measure values, new ecological paradigm, environmental locus of control and self-reported pro-environmental behaviors.1216undergraduates from3universities in Beijing and Inner Mongolia were participated in the investigation. Moreover, Suggestions for popularizing the ecological values and environmental concerns and prospect of further research were made. SPSS17.0and LISREL8.70were used for T-test, ANOVA, SEM and hierarchy regression analysis. Based on the sample data:(1) Significant differences in gender, nationality, place of original residence, and monthly average revenue of family have been found on four research variables.(2) Egoistic value had a negative direct effect on private behavior. Altruistic value had positive direct effects on private and public behaviors. However, the direct effects of biospheric value on two types of behaviors were not significant.(3) NEP had a positive direct effect on private behavior.(4) NEP played a completely mediating role in the relation between biospheric value and private behavior and a partial mediating role in the relation between egoistic value and private behavior.(5) ELOC was a moderator between NEP and two types of pro-environmental behaviors.