Bowei Zhong

Understanding the psychological drivers of pro-environmental behavior across different socioeconomic statuses (SESs) is crucial for effectively addressing environmental challenges. To assist businesses and management departments in adequately identifying the psychological characteristics of target consumer groups from different SES backgrounds, our research manipulated subjective SES through three experimental studies to investigate the influence of subjective SES on pro-environmental behavior. Studies 1 and 2 adopted online experiments to examine the influence of subjective SES on pro-environmental behavior within the private sphere and the public sphere. Subsequently, Study 3 further investigated the psychological mechanisms through which subjective SES influences pro-environmental behavior. These results indicated that individuals from high SES backgrounds exhibit a greater propensity for green consumption behavior and contribute more financially to environmental organizations than those from low SES backgrounds. In addition, these studies further elucidated that the sense of control and life history strategy sequentially mediate the relationship. These findings provide empirical evidence for understanding whether and how subjective SES influences pro-environmental behavior, and enriching the theoretical framework of the relationship between subjective SES on pro-environmental behavior.

Green travel is a special type of pro-environmental behavior, which requires people to pay a time cost to reduce carbon emissions. This study explored the impact of the cost of travel time and feedback types on green travel. To verify the change of travel choice under different time costs, experiment 1 explored the impact of different costs of travel time on green travel. The results showed that with the increase in time cost, green travel behavior gradually decreased. This suggests that time costs can hinder green travel behavior. To intervene in this negative effect, experiment 2 explored the effects of different types of feedback intervention. The results showed that both environmental and health feedback could only intervene with green travel behavior when the time costs were low. This indicates that health and environmental feedback can intervene in the negative effects of travel time cost, but the cost range of the intervention is limited. This study has implications for promoting green travel behavior.