The Impact of Different Value Types on Environmentally Responsible Behavior: An Empirical Study from Residents of National Park Communities in China

• Published in: Land (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 81
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yechen, Zhao, Yafei, Zhang, Hongmei, Zheng, Shanting, Yao, Jingjing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2024
• Subjects: assigned value; Attitudes; Behavior; Biosphere; China; Development strategies; ecological value; Ecosystem services; Empirical analysis; empirical research; Environmental aspects; Environmental behavior; Environmental liability; Environmental protection; Environmentalism; environmentally responsible behavior; Impact analysis; land; Least squares method; Management; national park; National parks; National parks and reserves; Natural resources; Norms; Parks & recreation areas; Social aspects; social benefit; Social norms; Social psychology; Structural models; Sustainable development; value-belief-norm theory; Values; China
• ISSN: 2073-445X; 2073-445X
• DOI: 10.3390/land13010081

The construction of China’s national park system is an important part of the ecological civilization development strategy, and the behavior of the subjects in the national park has a great impact on its sustainable development. Environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) is considered an important aspect of national park management, and the impact of an individual’s held value on environmental behavior has received much attention. However, the assigned value (AV) of community residents in national park-specific situations has not been concerned, which is often closely related to resident behavior within national park. Therefore, we took the residents of four gateway communities (Qixi town, Hetian town, Changhong town, and Suzhuang town) in Qianjiangyuan national park (QNP), Zhejiang province as research subjects. Based on the value-belief-norm (VBN) model representing individual values, this study integrates the perceived social value of ecosystem services in the national park among community residents and analyzes their impact on ERB. The collected data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 23.0, and the structural model was validated using SmartPLS based on Partial Least Squares Regression. The research findings revealed that (1) the assigned value has a significant positive influence on the environmentally responsible behavior of community residents; (2) pro-environment personal norms are the strongest predictive variable of environmentally responsible behavior; and (3) biosphere value, altruistic value and personal norms have significant positive influence on the formation of the assigned value of community residents.