Behavioral Research On Public Participation In Air Quality Improvement From The Perspective Of Psychological Distance

With the introduction of relevant national air pollution control policies,the air quality has improved,but the current air quality situation in China is still in a relatively severe stage.Assessing public preference for air pollution control and clarifying the psychological drivers and mechanisms of public participation in air quality improvement can provide an important reference for government departments to formulate more powerful air quality improvement policies and enhance public participation.Choice Experiment(CE)has been widely used in environmental policy research because it can reveal public preferences for environmental resources and the sources of preference heterogeneity according to individual choices in a series of alternatives.In the field of environmental economics,more and more scholars have begun to pay attention to the differences in preferences between individuals,and have analyzed and discussed the sources of heterogeneity in respondents’ preferences.However,the reasons behind preference decisions are extensive and complex,and previous CE studies have only focused on objective factors such as commodity attribute characteristics and socioeconomic variables,and ignored the impact of psychosocial factors,especially psychological distance,on the respondents’ preference heterogeneity.Psychological distance has been shown to play an important role in promoting environmental behavior change in previous studies.From the perspective of psychological distance,this study carried out the following studies.First of all,the structural equation model of psychological distance and planned behavior theory was constructed to initially explore the psychological driving factors and influence path of the public’s intention to improve air quality,so as to provide a basis for subsequent research.The results show that individuals’ intention to implement air quality improvement behavior is directly affected by their behavioral attitude,subjective norms,perceived behavioral control and social distance,and the hypothetical distance and social distance can indirectly affect the behavioral intention through perceived behavioral control and subjective norms,respectively.There is also a correlation between the four dimensions of psychological distance,which is embodied in temporal distance and hypothetical distance,spatial distance and social distance.Secondly,an integrated choice and latent variable(ICLV)analysis framework containing psychological distance and its different dimensions was constructed respectively.While evaluating the public’s preference for air quality improvement policies,to explore the impact of psychological distance and its different dimensions on public preference for air quality improvement,and how socioeconomic variables affect individuals’ psychological distance from air pollution.The results show that the public prefer air quality policies with more ratio of days of good air quality,fewer days of heavy pollution,fewer early mortality and shorter implementation years,and psychological distance is significantly positively correlated with the public’s preference for air quality policies.Compared with other dimensions of psychological distance,temporal distance significantly affects public preference for air quality improvement.Women and residents with higher education level and longer living time in Harbin have closer psychological perception of air pollution,and residents’ monthly income level is also an important factor influencing their spatial and hypothetical distance from air pollution.Finally,based on the above research conclusions,a conceptual framework of public participation in air quality improvement behavior was constructed,and the hierarchical ICLV model was used to explore the influence mechanism of psychological distance on public preference for air pollution control.The results show that the perceived temporal distance from air pollution can indirectly affect the public’s preference for air pollution control policies by positively influencing the hypothetical distance variable,the perceived behavior control variable and the behavioral intention variable.This study clarifies the influence and mechanism of psychological distance on public participation in air quality improvement and confirms the importance of psychological distance in promoting public participation in air pollution prevention and control.The findings enrich the research on CE and psychological distance,and provide guidance for the formulation of more effective and precise air pollution mitigation and prevention measures.