An Analysis Of Environmental Behavior Of Chinese Residents

The relation between the human society and the ecological environment is the main research object of environmental sociology. As environmental problems become increasingly serious, it is aroused widespread concerns that what kind of environmental behavior different population groups will take. In previous studies, there still exist a lot of controversies in this field in academic circles both at home and abroad. In earlier studies, the environmental behaviors are regarded as parts of environmental factors, and more attentions are paid to the relation between environmental factors and environmental behaviors. However, environmental behaviors are gradually split off from environmental factors in later studies, where they are analyzed as individuals in terms of their affecting factors and operation logics. Coupled with poorly defined concepts and different measurement scales, there has not formed a unified conclusion in this research field yet.Therefore, this paper attempts to perform a typological analysis of environmental behaviors of Chinese residents, gives an explanation of environmental behavior types, and seeks to make a prediction for environmental protest through the classification of environmental behaviors.Based on the data of CGSS2010, this paper will give an in-depth study about the environmental behaviors of residents nationwide. Firstly, according to environmental intentions and routine behaviors of environmental protection, environmental behaviors are classified as four types, namely, "non-environmentally friendly type", "payment type", "action-oriented type", and "environmentally friendly type." Then, under the support of the prevailing theories like the Post-materialism, the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Group Pressure Theory, this paper establishes assumptions of affecting factors of environmental behaviors, and tests them through Mlogit Models and stepwise regression methods. Ultimately, it predicts the environmental protest on the basis of environmental behaviors. According to the results, we can draw four conclusions:1. The higher income and score of environmental factors one gets, the more likely he/she will protect the environment at the cost of money; however, with income increasing, the odds of participating in environmental protection by ways of practical actions drop significantly.2. The older one gets, the more likely it is that he/she belongs to the action-oriented or environmentally friendly types, and this also applies to people in the eastern area, cities or other economically developed regions.3. The level of education is just a mediating variable between environmental factors and environmental behaviors, for it can only affect environmental factors, but cannot influence environmental behaviors directly.4. Group pressure variable has no significant influence on the classification of environmental behaviors, yet the participation in environmental groups increases the likelihood of environmental protests. On the basis of the above four conclusions, this paper makes a point that environmental factors, as well as age and regional differences, have a significant impact on environmental behaviors. Therefore, in order to mobilize residents to protect the environment, we need to give full attention to the elderly people, mobilize the sense of participation among residents in the eastern area and cities, strengthen the publicity of environmental knowledge, attitudes and values, and attach great importance to the demands of environmental groups.