A Study Of Rural Residents’ Ecological Consumption Behavior And Diffusion

With the implementation of the "double carbon" target,Chinese society has started to enter the era of sustainable development,and from the perspective of energy consumption structure,the growth rate of carbon emissions in the transportation sector is worthy of attention.While rural household energy consumption is an important part of the national energy strategy,the implementation of a low-carbon development model in rural transportation is an inevitable choice for China’s energy transition.As an important means of transportation for people’s livelihood,electric two-wheelers actively participate in the construction of a resource-saving and environment-friendly ecological society with their advantages of cost convenience,energy saving,and environmental protection,and help the national transportation sector achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.Therefore,guiding rural residents to change the existing mode of travel that relies on fuel cars and calling for the purchase of electric two-wheelers not only highly fits the travel demand,but also helps to respond to the concept of "green,energy-saving and emission reduction" and optimize the energy consumption structure of the rural market.First,this paper reviews and analyzes the three theories of rational behavior theory,normative activation model,and innovation diffusion theory,and conceptually defines the ecological consumption behavior of rural residents as well as a review of domestic and international studies to provide theoretical support and basis for determining the research framework of this paper.Second,658 rural residents’ data from 44 counties in 11 cities in Jiangxi Province were obtained through questionnaire design and field research,and the data were processed for regression analysis using principal component dimensionality reduction analysis based on checking the reliability of the research data and conducting validation factor analysis.The empirical findings show that the number of the household labor force,socioeconomic level,personal norms,individual innovativeness,and economic policy perceptions of rural residents have significant positive effects on their electric two-wheeler purchasing behavior,while age,subjective norms,relative advantage,and administrative policy perceptions show significant negative effects.Finally,Matlab simulation software is used to construct a SIR model of the diffusion of rural residents’ purchase behavior of electric two-wheelers,combining individual innovativeness and policy perception as well as external objective condition factors to simulate the state transfer as well as parameter settings.The simulation results show that the change of diffusion coefficient in the environment brings about the change in population size in each state.Among them,adoption and recovery rates show positive effects on intergroup behavioral diffusion,while abandonment,withdrawal,and response rates have negative effects on diffusion,i.e.,high individual innovativeness and high policy perceptions of rural residents can promote efficient and rapid diffusion,while market environment and objective conditions constrain behavioral diffusion.