Residents’ Payment Behavior For Improving Air Quality In Harbin Based On Psychological Distance And Theory Of Planned Behavior

With rapid industrialization and urbanization,the increasing air pollution problem has attracted wide attention from the Chinese government,the public and the academic community.Air pollution control is a massive task,and only collective action by local governments and the public can achieve win-win solutions.But China lags far behind developed countries in pushing the public to take responsibility for environmental protection.The lack of public participation has greatly limited the effectiveness of the implementation of China’s environmental policies.The government urgently needs to attach importance to the role of all members of society in the field of environmental protection and encourage the public to contribute to the mitigation of air pollution.However,the use of socioeconomic variables alone is no longer sufficient to explain the differences in public proenvironmental behavior.In recent years,more and more attention has been paid to psychological variables such as values,beliefs and attitudes,which are considered to provide more valuable information for relevant research.According to the psychological distance(PD)theory,an individual’s willingness to take action is influenced by the subjective perception of the distance between the self and the target object.Many studies have shown that the public tends to consider air pollution as a distant threat that affects people only in distant places and in the distant future.As a result,the public’s attention to air pollution will decrease with the increase of the perceived psychological distance to air pollution,thus inhibiting the enthusiasm of them to improve air quality.However,the domestic research on PD is only limited to consumer behavior,and the research on the motivation of public participation in solving environmental problems based on PD has not received much attention,and the partial effect of various dimensions of PD on the willingness to pay(WTP)for ecological environmental protection is relatively lacking.Therefore,it’s necessary to further explore the impact of PD on public actions to improve air quality,which is not only conducive to the establishment of an effective incentive mechanism to involve public in air pollution control,but also provide information for the implementation of sustainable development policies in China.The purpose of this study is to explore the determinants of residents’ willingness to improve air quality by using the extended theory of planned behavior(TPB)and introducing the four dimensions of psychological distance.Firstly,the contingent value method was used to estimate the WTP of Harbin residents to verify the incentive effect of various factors on environmental behavior.Through a questionnaire survey of 712 respondents in Harbin,the WTP currency scale was used to measure their behavioral willingness.Secondly,through the establishment of PD,theory of planned behavior and the structural equation model of WTP,the impact of psychological factors on Harbin residents’ air pollution payment behavior is fully explored.The results show that:(1)The average WTP of individual in Harbin is 361.15 RMB/year,accounting for 1.16% of residents’ annual income.(2)The WTP of residents was significantly affected by the socioeconomic attributes of respondents,such as education level,family size and number of cars.(3)The perception of PD in different dimensions of air pollution has overlapping effect.(4)Psychological distance has a positive effect on the residents’ attitudes and subjective norms to improve air quality.(5)Attitudes,subjective norms,perceived behavioral control and psychological distance have a comprehensive impact on residents’ behavioral intention and WTP.(6)The introduction of four dimensions of psychological distance can better explain residents’ payment behavior and improve the prediction effect of the model on behavioral intention and willingness to pay.This study proves that it is effective and feasible to incorporate PD into the theory of planned behavior.The PD-TPB-WTP comprehensive model emphasizes that public behavior can be motivated more directly and accurately by manipulating their psychological perception.This study provides a new application perspective for government and policy makers to understand the inner thoughts and motivations of residents to reduce air pollution.In terms of policy impact and communication,psychological perception control is the key measure for public participation in air pollution control.We suggest that relevant government departments and environmental managers formulate more targeted environmental protection measures and regulations according to public psychology,so as to better play the effectiveness of environmental protection system.