Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

How does new environmental law affect public environmental

protection activities in China? Evidence from structural equation model
analysis on legal cognition
Jielin Chen a,1, Junyue Huang b,1, Xiaocheng Huang a,1, Shiwei Sun a,1, Yu Hao a,c,d,e,f,⁎, Haitao Wu a,c,g,1
a
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
b
School of Law, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
c
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
d
Beijing Key Lab of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing 100081, China
e
Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing 100081, China
f
Collaborative Innovation Center of Electric Vehicles in Beijing, Beijing 100081, China
g
College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830047, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Impact of environmental law on public

environmental behavior is quantita-
tively investigated.
• No difference between the impact fac-
tors of environmental behavior of citi-
zen and activist
• Perceived behavioral control and sub-
jective norms positively influence envi-
ronmental intention.
• Legal cognition moderates the relation-
ship between environmental intentions
and behaviors.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To investigate the validity of Chinese law enforcement from the public's perspective, this research applies the
Received 5 September 2019 theory of planned behavior, and introduces law as a moderator variable to explore the determinants of public's
Received in revised form 21 December 2019 environmental behaviors. Results from an empirical study of China indicate that perceived behavioral control,
Accepted 4 January 2020
subjective norms, inward attitude, and outward attitude all have positive impacts on environmental intentions
Available online 13 January 2020
and indirectly affect the citizens' environmental behavior and activists' environmental behavior. Meanwhile,
Editor: Damia Barcelo legal cognition positively moderates the relationship between environmental intentions and behaviors. As the
level of the public's legal awareness increases, the direct effect of these two types of environmental intentions
Keywords: on environmental behaviors respectively continues to increase. Based on the findings, some constructive impli-
Environmental law cations are provided to the governments and legislators to strengthen public participation in environmental
Public environmental protection activities protection.
Structural equation model (SEM) © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Legal cognition
China

⁎ Corresponding author at: School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China.
E-mail addresses: shiweisun@bit.edu.cn (S. Sun), haoyuking@bit.edu.cn (Y. Hao).
1
These authors contributed equally and should be considered co-first authors.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136558
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
1. Introduction
Global environmental problems, including environmental degrada-
tion, global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain, are to a great extent
related with the use of natural resources in an unsustainable manner
(Singh and Singh, 2017). Nowadays, the international community has
already realized the urgency of protecting environment. Most devel-
oped countries started to deal with these problems earlier and have
made some accomplishments, including the successful implementation
of a number of demonstration projects of Carbon Capture and Storage
(Tcvetkov and Cherepovitsyn, 2016). However, it is still a common
problem for many developing countries to coordinate economic devel-
opment and environmental protection at the same time (Azam, 2016).
Take China as an example, since the reform and opening up, China's
economy has made substantial achievements. However, China's rapid
economic growth has caused serious environmental pollution (N.
Zhang et al., 2017; Sun et al., 2019; Managi and Kaneko, 2006). Accord-
ing to the 2018 bulletin of China's ecological environment situation, 217
of 338 prefecture-level cities (64.2%) in China have achieved the mini-
mum standard of environmental air quality. Additionally, environmen-
tal pollution such as water pollution and solid waste has caused serious
harm to human beings (Wang and Yang, 2016; Xie et al., 2016; Hystad
et al., 2019). Therefore, China's environmental governance systems re-
quire urgent changes. Notably, China's environmental governance
mainly depends on two means: law and planning. However, with the
frequent conflicts between economic development and preserving en-
vironmental quality, the effect on the quality and enforcement of the
law have gradually become unsuitable to fulfill social development
needs (Wang, 2009). Therefore, the new environmental law must be
designated to ensure the implementation of environmental responsibil-
ity. As a type of command-and-control regulation (B. Zhang et al., 2018),
can law be used as an auxiliary means to regulate citizens' environmen-
tal behaviors? Can law promote public participation in environmental
governance? Therefore, in this context, a study of whether new environ-
mental regulations can effectively affect the public's environmental pro-
tection activities and the formulation and sustainable development of
government environmental protection policies is of great theoretical
and practical significance.
Most of previous related studies on environmental law and environ-
mental pollution mainly involve the evaluation of and problems with
law enforcement (e.g., X. Li et al., 2019; Yu and Wang, 2013;
Fredriksson et al., 2010; Zhan et al., 2013; Ran, 2013; Kellenberg,
2009; Lu et al., 2012), the impact of environmental policies on the public
lifestyle (Christainsen and Haveman, 1981; Barbera and McConnell,
1990; Walley and Whitehead, 1994; Henderson, 1997; Greenstone,
2002; Porter and Van der Linde, 1995; Nielsen et al., 1995; Goodstein,
1995), and the impact of environmental policies on pollution situation
(Porter and Van der Linde, 1995; B. Zhang et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2018;
Wu et al., 2019; Zhu et al., 2019). However, most of the existent litera-
ture has focused on jurisprudential research or from the perspective of
macro-development and micro-economy, but the impact of law on pub-
lic environmental behaviors has long been ignored. Notably, the main
agents of environmental affairs include not only companies and firms
but also individual citizens. In this regard, protecting the environment
is the responsibility and obligation of both enterprises and citizens
(Nielsen, 2017; Yang and Weber, 2019). To fill the research gap, using
the data from a random sampling survey, this study applies the theory
of planned behavior and employs the structural equation model to ex-
plore the determinants of public's environmental behaviors. Specifi-
cally, environmental law is introduced as a moderator variable to
investigate how new environmental law affect public environmental
protection activities.
To sum up, the contribution of this paper is threefold. First, this study
verifies and replies to the validity of Chinese law enforcement, and for
the first time, focuses on the public's perspective, rather than the
enterprise's perspective, to explore whether new Chinese
environmental protection laws affect the public's environmental behav-
ior. Second, 544 questionnaire survey samples of normal citizens from
various provinces and cities in China are used to conduct empirical re-
search. The use of first-hand data ensures that the research findings
are more reliable and reasonable. Third, our results have practical signif-
icance and social value because of the evaluation of the practical effect of
environmental law in public participation and multi-governance of en-
vironmental governance. Moreover, we have also classified public envi-
ronmental attitude as an inward attitude (IA) and outward attitude
(OA) to refine the extended model based on the theory of planned
behavior.
Furthermore, the paper can still provide enlightening inspirations
globally, especially for some developing countries that face similar seri-
ous environmental problems and the countries with authoritarian re-
gimes. For those developing countries in the period of rapid economic
development, how to coordinate economic development and ecological
protection is a critical issue. This article provides specific perspectives
and aspects of promoting public's protection participation to protect
the environment. For instance, our findings can verify the effectiveness
of legal cognition when regulating individual environmental behaviors,
and thus encourage decision-makers to pay more attention to legal leg-
islation. In addition, for those countries with authoritarian regimes, this
study also proves that the mandatory weaker law can also play an im-
portant role for the individual's behaviors, which provides new thinking
to the public governance.
The remainder of this study is organized into six sections. The second
section provides brief literature review. The third section offers the re-
search framework and model at first, and then the methodology for
the questionnaire design and data sources is explained. The fourth sec-
tion explains the results of model testing, structural equation model
analysis, and the moderating effect of legal cognition. Then, correspond-
ing discussions of the research results are presented. In the final section,
conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of this study are derived
and provided from the study findings.
2. Literature review
As briefly mentioned in the Introduction Section, there are three
types of literature related with the topic of environmental law and pub-
lic environmental protection activities. Specifically, these studies mainly
involve the evaluation of and problems with law enforcement, the im-
pact of environmental policies on the public's lifestyle, and the impact
of environmental policies on pollution control.
Regarding the evaluation of environmental law enforcement, rele-
vant researches investigated the importance of regulation enforcement
in the process of environmental governance in the developing countries
(e.g., X. Li et al., 2019; Yu and Wang, 2013). The results suggested that
the effect of the law might be subject to political bias (Fredriksson
et al., 2010), limited resources (Zhan et al., 2013), personal economic in-
terests (Ran, 2013) and other factors and mentioned the potential harm
of pollution haven effects to developing countries (Kellenberg, 2009; Lu
et al., 2012). Specifically, taking China's legal and planned environmen-
tal policies as the research object, X. Li et al. (2019) investigated the im-
pact of the central government's rules, regulations and reward and
punishment mechanisms on the implementation of local government
policies. The results indicate that local governments may selectively im-
plement environmental policies. Such selective implementation efforts
are mainly determined by autocratic environmentalism and the target
responsibility system imposed by the central government. Yu and
Wang (2013) established a Stackelberg model to study how environ-
mental law is implemented by the central government and local gov-
ernments in China, and they found that there is a conflict of interest
between the central government and the local government.
Frederickson (2002) argued that the function of bureaucracy in the
Eastern countries was stronger than that in the Western countries,
and the law enforcement in the East was strongly influenced by
 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
bureaucracy, of which the root was Confucianism. Ran (2013) found
that the incentive mechanism structure of China's central government
for the implementation of local environmental policies is unreasonable,
and the central government fails to encourage local government offi-
cials to properly implement environmental policies politically, finan-
cially and morally. In addition, a relevant research conducted by
Kellenberg (2009) also found evidence that relatively‘footloose’ indus-
tries are more vulnerable to the impact of environmental policies than
traditionally, and the implementation of environmental policies is
often more important than the strictness of policies.
As for the impact of environmental policies on the public, the previ-
ous literature mainly focused on the impact of environmental policies
on employment, income and health of residents. The relevant studies
found that the formulation of environmental regulation policy would
lead to the rise of enterprise cost, reduce the production efficiency and
income of enterprises, thus resulting in employment losses that are
caused by environmental regulation (e.g., Christainsen and Haveman,
1981; Barbera and McConnell, 1990; Walley and Whitehead, 1994;
Henderson, 1997; Stanwick and Stanwick, 1998; Greenstone, 2002;
Busse, 2004; Chintrakarn, 2008). However, some scholars argued that
the environmental regulation could improve the demand of labor
force by affecting the innovation of enterprises, social benefits and em-
ployment environment (e.g., Porter, 1991; Porter and Van der Linde,
1995; Nielsen et al., 1995; Goodstein, 1995; Bezdek et al., 2008;
Mishra and Smyth, 2012; Belova et al., 2013; Gray et al., 2014). In addi-
tion, some studies have found that environmental policies can affect
residents' health and income. On one hand, environmental regulations
have changed the structure of consumption demand to be more envi-
ronmentally friendly, and therefore help to promote healthy consump-
tion behavior (Boyce, 2007). On the other hand, the optimization of
human capital caused by the promotion of environmental regulations
has a significant effect on the improvement of citizens' health conditions
(Sheng, 2017). Using the provincial panel data of China from 2002 to
2013, Sheng (2017) found evidence that low-income groups have
more damage to the health due to less investment in healthy human
capital, thus increasing income inequality. The implementation of envi-
ronmental regulation policy can therefore reduce income inequality by
controlling environmental pollution. Boyce (2007) argued that income
inequality changes the public's preference for environmental quality,
thus affecting the government's public environmental policy and envi-
ronmental quality. Chay et al. (2003) evaluated the health effects of
the implementation of the American Clean Air Act (CAA), and found
that although the mortality rate of adults did not change much, the
level of TSP decreased significantly. In this regard, the effectiveness of
the air clean act was significant. Through scenario simulations, some
scholars also found that water pollution regulation policies have differ-
ent health and economic effects in the long run (Bell et al., 2006;
Anenberg et al., 2009).
Regarding the impact of environmental policies on environmental
pollution, previous studies basically focused on the effectiveness of en-
vironmental regulation policies (i.e., how and to what extent do these
policies and regulations reduce environmental pollution). Some studies
tested the hypothesis of “forced emission reduction”, and found that en-
vironmental regulation can reduce environmental pollution to a certain
extent. Specifically, strictly and properly designed environmental regu-
lations can stimulate enterprises' innovation activities, and the resulting
“compensation effect” of innovation can at least partially offset the cost
of environmental regulations, which is conducive to the improvement
of productivity and the reduction of environmental pollution (Porter
and Van der Linde, 1995). Some recent studies found that environmen-
tal regulations improve environment by reducing greenhouse gas emis-
sions (e.g., Boskovic, 2015; Schreifels et al., 2012; Hao et al., 2019) and
curbing pollution (B. Zhang et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2018; Wu et al.,
2019; Zhu et al., 2019). Using a dataset collected in Dublin, Clancy
et al. (2002) verified that the formulation and implementation of envi-
ronmental regulation policies are indeed conducive to the improvement
3
of environmental quality, greatly reducing the emissions of pollutants,
and thus highlighting the importance and necessity of government en-
vironmental regulation. Cairns (2014) suggested that environmental
regulations can promote carbon emission reduction without consider-
ing the natural and technological characteristics of oil production. In
contrast, following the hypothesis of “green paradox”, some scholars ar-
gued that environmental regulation may not necessarily lead to the re-
duction of environmental pollution. For instance, Sinn (2008) found
that environmental regulation may even increase carbon emissions,
which may be caused by unreasonable carbon tax setting, reduced de-
mand of administrative measures for fossil energy and lagged process
of policy promulgation and implementation. According to the research
of Smulders et al. (2012), the early announcement of carbon tax policies
and regulations may lead to the instantaneously rapid increase of car-
bon emissions, therefore the carbon emissions between the announce-
ment and the actual implementation period may increase remarkably.
Ritter and Schopf (2014) found that green policy measures may not
only accelerate the exploitation of fossil fuels, but also lead to large
emissions of greenhouse gases. In addition, some scholars believe that
“green paradox” and “backward forcing emission reduction” exist at
the same time. For instance, Min (2018) found that the nexus between
environmental regulation and carbon emissions is inverted U-shaped.
Moreover, “green paradox” effect dominates before the inflection
point is reached, while “forced emission reduction” effect dominates
after the inflection point is reached.
In summary, the extant literature has to some extent demonstrated
advantages and disadvantages of laws and regulations on environmen-
tal protection. Some studies have also explored the potential problems
and clarified the effects of regulations on environmental improvement.
However, the law's impact on individual environmental behaviors has
long been ignored. Therefore, in this study the influence of new environ-
mental law on the public environmental protection activities is carefully
examined. This study has not only contribution to literature but also
may bring new thinking to the governance of environmental issues
and support the subsequent legal implementation.
3. Research framework and model building
The theory of planned behavior (TPB) argues the human behavior is
the result of planning. This theory has been widely applied in the studies
on the relations among beliefs, attitudes, behavioral intentions and be-
haviors in various fields such as advertising, public relations, advertising
campaigns, healthcare, sport management and sustainability (Armitage
and Conner, 2010). According to the statistics of Al-Suqri (2015), so far
there has been N1200 research bibliographies on TPB in the academic
database. It helps explain individuals' behavior in certain contexts, argu-
ing humans' behavior is caused by the behavioral intentions, and behav-
ioral intentions are in turn a function of an individual's attitude and
subjective norm (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) as well as perceived behav-
ioral control (Ajzen, 1991). According to TPB, the objective variable “en-
vironmental behavior” is a behavior that theoretically may be affected
by one's attitude, norm and resources. The TPB has been widely used
in the study on human behavior and the study of environmental behav-
ior (De Groot and Steg, 2007; X. Zhang et al., 2017; Y. Zhang et al., 2018).
In this study the TPB is utilized as the main theoretical basis for the anal-
ysis. Specifically, Fig. 1 shows the theoretical framework of this paper.
3.1. Environmental behavior
Pro-environmental behavior is a broad concept, and people who are
environmentally conscious are usually more willing to be involved in
multiple activities of environmental protection (Stern, 2000). After
measuring self-reported environmental behaviors, Stern et al. (1999)
proposed that there are three types of behaviors that may encompass
different kinds of pro-environmental activities: green purchase, good
citizenship behavior (e.g., recycling), and environmental activist
4 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
behavior. Considering the complexity of environmental law, the classifi-
cation of environmental protection behavior is helpful to analyze the in-
fluence of environmental law on environmental protection behavior
more specifically. However, the main purpose of this study is to investi-
gate the moderate effect of China's new environmental law, which does
not involve consumers' purchase content or provision and thus has no di-
rect effect on purchasing behavior. Moreover, most of the studies on envi-
ronmental behaviors have examined green purchase behavior (Zhang
et al., 2019; Hanninen and Karjaluoto, 2017; Zhang et al., 2013;
Leonidou et al., 2010). Therefore, this study only focusses on good citizen-
ship behavior (CB) and activists' behavior (AB). The reasons are as fol-
lows: (1) good citizenship behavior, namely, reduction of energy
consumption and daily resource waste or recycling activities; and (2) ac-
tivists' environmental behavior, including joining environmental protec-
tion organizations and actively reporting environmental problems.
3.2. Environmental intention
According to the two types of environmental behaviors, there are corre-
sponding two categories of environmental intentions: Citizens' environ-
mental intention (CI) and Activists' environmental intention (AI). A series
of previous studies indicate that, a person could make a conscious plan
and commitment to take action after evaluating the internal aspects
(e.g., personal knowledge, emotion) and the external aspects (e.g., costs,
benefits) (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). As for the influence of behavior inten-
tion, researchers have found that people will conduct intention only when
their self-cognition changes. Wang et al. (2018) directly verified the impact
of tourists' environmental intentions on environmental behaviors through
structural equation model and a hypothesis test, and the results were signif-
icant. Lee et al. (2014) and Liu et al. (2010) have also demonstrated that en-
vironmental behavior intention directly affects environmental behavior.
Therefore, we propose the following two hypotheses.
H1. Citizens' environmental intention directly affects citizens' environ-
mental behavior.
H2. Activists' environmental intention directly affects activists' envi-
ronmental behavior.
3.3. Environmental attitude
Some previous studies demonstrated that attitude directly affects
behavioral intention (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; McCarty and Shrum,
2001). To achieve individual assessment of environmental actions, a
framework of inward environmental attitude (IA) and outward envi-
ronmental attitude (OA) was proposed (Leonidou et al., 2010). An in-
ward attitude refers to “attitudes referring to the abuse of the
environment by individual consumers”; that is, the attitude toward in-
dividuals or themselves taking environmental measures. In contrast,
outward attitude is related to other people and groups other than the
individuals or themselves. It refers to the views on the necessity of so-
cial, political, and legal changes to protect the environment (Stern,
Fig. 1. Model of the hypothesized relationships between attitudes, subjective norm,
perceived behavior control, law, environmental intention and environmental behavior.
2000; Leonidou et al., 2010). As for TPB, “outward attitude” is an ex-
tended variable, and existent studies argue that an appropriate ex-
tended theory of planned behavior model may have more predictive
power (Gorsuch and Ortenberg, 1983; Conner and Armitage, 1998;
Bosnjak et al., 2005). As lots of studies agree that in the field of environ-
mental protection, apart from individuals, the active participation of
governments, society, non-profit organizations, and other stakeholders
should be fully involved (e.g., Liere and Dunlap, 1980; Leonidou et al.,
2010; Trivedi et al., 2018). As this study is to examine the effect of law
on the environmental behavior, we also care about people's opinion
on the necessity of other groups to make some changes for the environ-
ment. In this regard, “outward attitude” is a proper extended variable
that we take into account in the analysis. Theoretical and empirical anal-
yses have both suggested that individual attitudes play a crucial leading
role in environmental protection (Festinger, 1957; Leonidou et al.,
2010). Thus, we propose the following hypotheses:
H3. IA has a positive impact on citizens' environmental intention.
H4. IA has a positive impact on activists' environmental intention.
H5. OA has a positive impact on citizens' environmental intention.
H6. OA has a positive impact on activists' environmental intention.
3.4. Subjective norm
Subjective norms directly affect behavioral intentions (Vining and
Ebreo, 1992). Subjective norms refer to individuals who are influenced
by others and then change their behavior (Raymore, 2002). Individuals
or groups always promote interpersonal participation (Fishbein and
Ajzen, 1975), and people change their behavior by observing others
(e.g., parents, friends, and partners) in society (Bandura and Wood,
1989). Environment-related research has also shown that people are
more likely to feel socially responsible (Schwartz, 1977); thus, people
will take more actions that are useful to society due to the influence of so-
cial common morality and binding specification (Schwartz, 1977; Pretty,
2003). Cheung and Vogel (2013) argued that a subjective norm has a di-
rect positive impact on environmental intentions and serves as a moder-
ating variable between environmental attitudes and environmental
intentions. When people have a positive environmental attitude, they en-
hance environmental intentions. Given the importance of subjective
norms to environmental intention, we propose the following hypotheses:
H7. A subjective norm has a positive effect on citizens' environmental
intention.
H8. A subjective norm has a positive effect on activists' environmental
intention.
3.5. Perceived behavioral control
Perceived behavioral control (PBC) reflects an individual's experi-
enced and expected obstacles. Planned behavior theory indicates that
the more resources and opportunities an individual thinks he or she
has, the fewer obstacles he or she expects, and the stronger perceptual
behavioral control she or he has (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Wan et al.,
2017). PBC is widely used to study residents' environmental protection
intentions (Valle et al., 2005; Wan et al., 2017; Li et al., 2017; Li and Wu,
2019). We divided perceived behavior control into the residents' citizen
perceived behavior control (PCC) and the activist-perceived behavior
control (PCA) according to two types of established environmental be-
haviors. PCC emphasizes the opportunities and obstacles in residents'
good-citizen environmental protection process. Influencing factors in-
clude the status of basic equipment for residents' garbage and recycling,
the convenience of saving electricity and water, and the establishment
of recycling points for, for example, old clothes. (Lee et al., 2014). In
 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
terms of PCA, it is manifested in carrying out more aggressive environ-
mental activities, such as reporting, protesting, donating, joining envi-
ronmental protection organizations. (Lee et al., 2014). The factors
affecting perceived behavior include the reporting of protests, the num-
ber of organized donations, and the number of environmental protec-
tion organizations. Cheung et al. (1999) investigated the impact of
PBC on environmental intentions and showed that PBC has an impor-
tant impact on residents' green recycling intention. Therefore, we pro-
pose the following hypotheses:
H9. PCC has a positive effect on citizens' environmental intention.
H10. PCA has a positive effect on activists' environmental intention.
3.6. Environmental law
Law is of great significance to conduct. Law has a punitive and deter-
rent effect on people's behaviors, generating a legal incentive
(Friedman, 1994). Vroom (1964) indicated in his expectancy theory
that law proposes expected rewards or results that can stimulate behav-
iors. Additionally, the law provides the corresponding procedure and
method for people's behavior and makes the behavior orientation
clear and definite. In the environment field, the law also has an impor-
tant impact on behavior. According to a study by Sutherland (2010), en-
vironmental laws and regulations positively affect farmers' investment
in agricultural development. Lu et al. (2012) demonstrated that envi-
ronmental protection laws in developed countries contribute to the
transfer of environmental pollution. Zhao et al. (2015) demonstrated
that environmental protection laws and regulations promote the
green development of companies. The theoretical model of planned be-
havior is widely used in the field of the environment, but not many re-
searchers have combined other external factors. Notably, in discussions
of the impact of internal factors on environmental behavior, external
factors (i.e., laws and policies) should be considered to get closer to re-
ality. Because individuals are not completely independent, except for in-
ternal factors, they are also subtly influenced by policies, culture, laws,
and other external factors (Wang et al., 2018).
The external variable chosen in this study is the legal cognition. Few
studies have explored the influence of law on environmental protection
behavior with environmental law as the regulating variable. One of sim-
ilar studies has been conducted is about tourists' environmental protec-
tion behavior (Wang et al., 2018). Interpreted as moderating variable
based on the environment, environmental interpretation includes tour-
ism environmental policy, environmental warning labels and environ-
mental laws, and the overall framework, regarding the theory of
planned behavior to explore the factors' influence on tourist environ-
mental behavior of concrete and the regulation of legal interpretation.
The results show that an environmental explanation of environmental
behavior does have a positive role in regulating. We posit that laws
also have a positive regulating effect on residents' citizens' environmen-
tal behavior and radical environmental behavior. Therefore, the follow-
ing hypothesis is proposed:
H11. Environmental law positively moderates the relationship be-
tween citizens' environmental intention and behavior.
H12. Environmental law positively moderates the relationship be-
tween activist's environmental intention and behavior.
4. Methodology
4.1. Outline
In this study, a questionnaire survey is used to evaluate people's at-
titude, intention and behavior toward the environment. Using the data
collected from the questionnaires, the internal consistency, construct
5
reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity are tested and
verified. Then, using AMOS software, the structural equation model
(SEM) is employed to test and verify the fitness of the hypothetical
model, and the correlations between all variables through path analysis
are obtained. Afterwards, SPSS PROCESS is utilized to analyze the mod-
erate effects of the legal cognition by testing the significance of the in-
teraction terms.
4.2. Questionnaire development
As mentioned previously, this paper tends to explore whether and
how the new environmental law affects public environmental behav-
iors. To solve this problem, at first the possible determinants of environ-
mental behaviors should be figured out, and then the legal cognition
should be linked to the verified model to test the moderating effect of
laws on residents' environmental behaviors.
Specifically, to verify the model and corresponding hypotheses, we
firstly consider whether the environmental intention directly affects en-
vironmental behaviors (H1−H2) and whether independent variables
have positive effect on environmental intention (H3−H10). After two
pre-surveys, the questions focused on the independent variables, envi-
ronmental intention and environmental behaviors have been respec-
tively designed. To verify whether the new environmental law has the
moderation effect between environmental intention and behavior
(H11 and H12), both public law knowledge and public behaviors should
be considered, for the effect of law can be seen through the behaviors of
residents with different degrees of knowledge of the law. Therefore, 10
questions are designed to judge residents' knowledge of law.
After initial designing and revisions following a pilot survey, the for-
mal questionnaire with 41 questions was fixed. 27 latent variable scales,
ten legally relevant judgment questions, and four control variable
topics. A 7-point Likert scale was used to measure the degrees of agree-
ment to the items in the questionnaire from “strongly disagree” to
“strongly agree;” among them, the questions about laws and regulations
centered on the Environmental Protection Law of People's Republic of
China, the core law of the Chinese environmental protection system,
and considered other distinctive regulations, including “the General
Principles” of Environmental Protection Law of People's Republic of
China, Chapter 5 “Public Participation,” and Chapter 6 “Legal Responsi-
bilities and other Laws Relevant to residents.” The questionnaire cov-
ered important systems in China's environmental law, such as motor
vehicle restriction, public interest litigation, no-fault liability, pollutant
discharge permit, secret reports, and daily punishments. It considered
the relevant laws that clarify public rights and obligations and laws
that improve citizens' environmental awareness and prevent citizens
from polluting the environment. Among the questions related to the
quantification of environmental behaviors, the three types of activists'
environmental behaviors included “participating in environmental
non-profit organizations,” “supporting environmental organizations
(e.g., donations, public appeals, participation in activities),” and “com-
plaints, reports, protests, and litigation.” The four types of citizen behav-
ior were “turn off the lights,” “save water,” “green traffic,” and “garbage
recycling.” The control variables were drawn on the design of environ-
mental behavior research and included four demographic characteris-
tics (gender, age, occupation, and monthly disposable income). The
relevant items and sources are given in Table 1. The whole question-
naire is in Table 2.
Considering the content coverage, “turn off the lights”, “save water”,
“green traffic” and “garbage recycling” are chosen as citizen environ-
mental behaviors. On one hand, water and electricity, as basic necessi-
ties and public services in a populous country, must be ensured to
satisfy its residents' daily use. As a result, water and electricity prices
set by the Chinese government are considerably low. Even after the in-
troduction of ladder prices for water and electricity, the average
monthly price per person in Beijing city is only lower than 20 Chinese
yuan (c.a. 3 U.S. dollars). Take water as an example. Despite the severe
6 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
Table 1
Factors affecting environmental behaviors.
Determinants in previous Determinants in the literature Sources
studies
Inward attitude I am very concerned about the Kilbourne and
environment Pickett, 2008
Everybody is obligated to treasure Lam, 1999
the environment
We should care about the Fujii, 2006
environment
Outward attitude Major political change is Trivedi et al.,
necessary 2018
Major social changes are
necessary
Major law revision is necessary
Social norm Family members Prete et al., 2017
Friends
Social reputation
Perceived behavioral Public transportation satisfied Cheung et al.,
control (citizen) Many recycle bins. 1999
Perceived behavioral Many environmental activities Han et al., 2010
control (activist) Many ways to report
environmental problems
water shortage in China especially in the northern region, the market-
based pricing method is mainly used for irrigation water and industrial
water (Johansson, 2000). However, water for citizen household use has
not been fully marketized (Wang et al., 2010). Some existent researches
also indicate that several economic factors such as water price and
household income have no direct impact on residential water use in
China (e.g., Zhang and Brown, 2005). On another hand, some recent
studies have found that most of China's CO2 emissions are highly asso-
ciated with energy consumption in big cities (e.g., Fan et al., 2015; Mi
et al., 2016), and especially in the transportation area (e.g., Qiu and
He, 2017, Yang and He, 2016, Sheng and Ling-Yun, 2016). Due to rapid
economy development and flourishing online car hailing services, Chi-
nese citizens could travel by private cars and cabs at relatively low
prices, and the rapid growth of passenger vehicles greatly contribute
to greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumptions (Fan et al., 2017).
4.3. Data collection and sample profile
During five months between October 2018 and January 2019, we
randomly distributed 610 questionnaires in 29 provinces, autonomous
regions and municipal cities in the mainland of China (excluding Hong
Kong, Macao and Taiwan). The sample size of each province was
based on its population size. The surveys were distributed by trained in-
vestigators at schools, in central business districts, at the local libraries,
at shopping malls, and in residential areas within the city limits. The re-
spondents in different regions were chosen by considering their gender,
age, income and career. To obtain high-quality feedback and increase
the response rate, a paper-and-pen interview was adopted. Of the 610
questionnaires, 544 were collected (89.2%). Table 2 below provides de-
scriptive statistics analysis on the collected data.
Among the 544 respondents, the age group in this study is between
10 and 74. A similar distribution is shown in the national statistics, dem-
onstrating that the largest group of people in China is aged from 10 to 74
(84.46%). More specifically, among the respondents, the children under
18 years old are about 5.51% and China has 5.17% of children aged
15–19. Responders who older than 50 years old are about 28.86% and
China has 24.11% of people older aged 50–70. Of all correspondents
aged in the range of 10–74, 20% are between 19 and 30 and 41.75%
are between 31 and 50. Among the respondents, 29.78% and 35.85%
are the corresponding rates. With regard to monthly income, as most
questionnaire distributed in the provincial capital city where citizens
are relatively rich, 6.61% of the response group report income below
than 1000 Chinese yuan (RMB); 10.11% of them have an income be-
tween 1001 and 3000 RMB; 39.52% of them report income between
Table 2
Questionnaire.
Section A: Personal profile
1. Gender: (M) Male (F) Female
2. Age: (1) Younger than 18/ (2) 18–30/ (3) 31–50/ (4) Older than age 51
3. What is your net monthly income? (1) Less than 1000/ (2)1000–3000/ (3)
3001–6000/ (4) 6001–9000/ (6) More than 9000
4. What is your career? (1) Student (2) Enterprise employee (3) Civil servant (4)
Other
Section B: Latent variable scales
Inward attitude
I am very concerned about the environment.
Everybody is obligated to treasure the environment.
I feel guilty when I find that my surrounding environment has severely
deteriorated.
Outward attitude
Major political change is necessary.
Major social changes are necessary.
Major revisions to the law are necessary.
Subjective norm
My family members have asked me to protect the environment.
My friends have asked me to protect the environment.
Damaging the environment would damage my reputation.
Perceived behavioral control (citizen)
Public transportation can fulfill my daily needs.
Recycling bins are common around me.
Perceived behavioral control (activist)
I know many ways to report environmentally unfriendly behavior.
There are many environmental activities around me.
Citizens' environmental intention
I would like to save energy as much as possible.
I would like to save resources as much as possible.
I would like to choose green travel as much as possible.
I would like to sort garbage and recycle as much as possible.
Activists' environmental intention
If my life or my children's life is affected by environmental pollution, I will actively
take action (e.g., report, parade, protest, and lawsuit)
If I find a nearby project would greatly harm the environment, I will take action
against its construction.
If I have the ability, I will support environmental organizations (e.g., donations,
public appeals, and participation in activities).
Citizens' environmental behavior
I always turn off the lights when I leave.
I always turn off the tap when I leave.
Generally, I use public transportation, bicycles, and walking to travel.
I often put water bottles in the recycling bin.
Activists' environmental behavior
I am or was a member of an environmental organization.
I have supported environmental organizations (e.g., donations, public appeals, and
participation in activities)
I have reported, protested, or prosecuted environmental pollution.
Section C: Legal-related judgment questions
Protecting the environment is a basic state policy.
There is a motor vehicle tail number restriction policy in my area.
Noise is also legally prescribed pollution.
If a construction project starts before the environmental impact statement (or
form) has been examined, construction will be ordered to stop.
Public individuals are not allowed to bring environmental public interest lawsuits.
Environmental pollution behavior applies liability without fault.
The relevant units remain confidential to promote citizenship reports if pollution
behavior.
China implements a sewage permit system.
If polluters refuse to correct their illegal behaviors, they will be punished by a daily
penalty.
Serious pollution of the environment may result in criminal liability.
3001 and 6000 RMB; 25.73% have an income of 6001–9000 RMB; and
18.19% have an income N12,000 RMB. The average income of all respon-
dents is around 5500 RMB. As a comparison, according to the Beijing
 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558 7

Statistical Yearbook (2018)2, the average income of the citizens in Bei- Table 3
jing was 5665 RMB. The survey participants cover a variety of occupa- Sample description.

tions, including civil servants (24.26%), students (18.2%), enterprise Responders' characteristics Level Percentages
employees (45.77%), and others (11.58%). In general, in terms of age, in- Gender Male 34.19
come and career, the socioeconomic profile of the sample is representa- Female 65.81
tive for Chinese citizens. Age Younger than 18 5.51
18–30 29.78
31–50 35.85
4.4. Data processing
Older than 51 28.86
Income (RMB) Less than 1000 6.61
In the actual use of questionnaire values, legal variables are classified 1000–3000 10.11
variables. Because the questions about law are the judgment questions, 3001–6000 39.52
according to the data, the average correctness of each person is 4.9 ques- 6001—9000 25.73
More than 9000 18.19
tions; thus, the boundary is 4.9. If the answer is N4.9, it is classified as Career Students 18.20
high legal consciousness, and the value is 1; if the problem is lower Enterprise employees 45.77
than 4.9, it is classified as low legal consciousness. The assignment Civil servants 24.26
value is 0. There is no significant difference between the two types of Others 11.58
people.

5. Results for the shortcomings of traditional regression analysis and factor analy-
sis, and can analyze the relationship of multiple factors and multiple ef-
5.1. Measurement model testing fects and latent variables (Byrne and Stewart, 2006; Hair et al., 2006;
Hair et al., 1998). In this paper, none of the variables were single vari-
This paper used AMOS21 and SPSS statistics 25 to verify the con- ables, including latent variables, observed variables, and the interaction
struct validity of the scale. Table 3 shows the reliability and validity between variables. Therefore, rather than traditional regression analy-
results. sis, we used SEM. Based on the model fitting degree test, the data results
AMOS was first used for confirmatory factor analysis to examine the obtained by the final model are a 2.525 chi-square degree of freedom
internal consistency by observing goodness of fit with the hypothetical ratio, GFI = 0.906, CFI = 0.937, NFI = 0.900, TLI = 0.927, RMSEA =
model. The results showed that the latent variables are sufficiently 0.053, which are close to or have reached the standard of good fitting
strong to interpret the explicit variable. The standardized factor load- degree. Table 5 indicates no significant deviation between the final
ings of 27 observed variables were maintained between 0.685 and model and the real data.
0.912, and all were above the standard of 0.5. The overall fit of the mea- In Table 6, the hypothesis we proposed before has been answered.
surement model was up to standard (χ2/df = 1.555, GFI = 0.942, CFI = According to the coefficient (beta = 0.222, p = 0.000), H3 is supported,
0.977, NFI = 0.938, TLI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.032), indicating the high hold that IA has a positive impact on citizens' environmental intention.
degree of the validity of the measurement. According to the coefficient (beta = 0.288, p = 0.000), H5 is supported,
Three methods are commonly used to evaluate homogeneity of indi- hold that OA has a positive impact on citizens' environmental intention.
cators: split-half reliability, Nuder-Richardson formulas, and Cronbach’ According to the coefficient (beta = 0.232, p = 0.000), H7 is supported,
alpha. This paper used Cronbach's alpha method to test construct reli- hold that subjective norm has a positive effect on citizens'
ability. The high correlation between the measured items results in a
high alpha score, proving homogeneity. Researchers have generally Table 4
adopted the Nunnally's standard (Nunnally, 1978), which is acceptable Results of confirmatory factor analysis.
when the alpha value is at or above 0.7. The results showed that the Construct Indicator Standardized Cronbach's Average
Cronbach's alpha scores of nine latent variables were N0.7, verifying factor alpha value variance
the stability and reliability of the construct. loadings extracted
The convergent validity and discriminant validity of the scale are Inward attitude IA1 0.839 0.909 0.77
also necessary prerequisites for discussing the causal relationship be- IA2 0.912
tween variables. Convergence validity means that the scores of the IA3 0.883
Outward attitude OA1 0.836 0.871 0.70
same construct should be highly correlated in different measurement
OA2 0.884
modes. Fornell and Larcker (1981) proposed estimating it by calculating OA3 0.783
the average variance extraction (AVE), which should be higher than 0.5 Subjective norm SN1 0.815 0.87 0.69
otherwise the convergent validity cannot be accepted. The results in SN2 0.856
Table 4 show that the AVE of the nine factors in the model was up to SN3 0.822
Perceived behavioral control PCC1 0.687 0.701 0.54
standard of the validity. In addition, I discriminant validity can be ap- (citizen) PCC2 0.786
proved if the AVE value is higher than the square of the correlation co- Perceived behavioral control PCA1 0.839 0.798 0.67
efficient between the latent variables. The results in Table 4 also (activist) PCA2 0.792
confirm that the measurement of latent variables can be distinguished Citizen behavior intention CBI1 0.816 0.849 0.85
CBI2 0.86
from other scales.
CBI3 0.749
CBI4 0.647
5.2. Structural equation model analysis Activist behavior intention ABI1 0.786 0.807 0.59
ABI2 0.787
ABI3 0.721
AMOS 21.0 was used to analyze the structural equation model (SEM)
Citizen behavior CB1 0.751 0.842 0.77
in this paper. SEM is a multivariate statistical technique that combines CB2 0.726
factor analysis and path analysis. SEM includes analysis of variance, re- CB3 0.783
gression analysis, path analysis, and factor analysis, which makes up CB4 0.78
Activist behavior AB1 0.767 0.807 0.58
2 AB2 0.781
For more information, one could refer to the website of National Bureau of Statistics of
AB3 0.744
China (http://www.stats.gov.cn).
8 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558

environmental intention. According to the coefficient (beta = 0.191, Table 6

p = 0.000), H9 is supported, hold that PCC has a positive effect on citi- Fit index of the hypothetical model and final model (N = 533).

zens' environmental intention. Activist intention has a similar result. Model χ2/df GFI CFI NFI TLI RMSEA
Due to the path coefficient and p value, all four paths are significant Criteria ≤3 ≥0.9 ≥0.9 ≥0.9 ≥0.9 ≤0.08
and positive, which suggests H2, H4, H6, and H8 are supported. Regard- Hypothetical 1.555 0.942 0.977 0.938 0.971 0.032
ing the correlations between intention and behavior, the coefficient Final 2.525 0.906 0.937 0.900 0.927 0.053
shows that both types of intentions positively relate to behaviors Note. CFI = comparative fit index; df = degree of freedom; GFI = goodness of fit index;
(beta = 0.288, p = 0.000; beta = 0.232, p = 0.000), which indicates NFI = normed fit index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; TLI =
H1 and H2 are supported. Tucker-Lewis index.

5.3. Moderating role test of law between the publics' legal cognition and activists' environmental inten-
tion a have significant and positive predictive effect on activists' envi-
According to the method proposed by the literature (Preacher and ronmental behavior (β = 0.15, p b 0.01). To plot the interaction effect,
Hayes, 2004), the moderate effect of legal cognition in the relationship activists' environmental intention and publics' legal cognition took the
between environmental intention and environmental behavior was ex- values of one standard deviation below (i.e., low level) and above
amined. All variables were normalized, and all operations were per- (i.e., high level) the mean, as shown in Fig. 3.This finding shows that
formed with the SPSS macro PROCESS 2.15. the impact of activists' environmental intention on activists' environ-
To test the moderate effect, the results support that (Table 7) citi- mental behavior is regulated by the publics' legal cognition. Further-
zens' environmental intention predicts citizens' environmental behav- more, as the simple slope diagrams shown in Fig. 3, the public legal
ior significantly and positively (β = 0.36, p b 0.001). In addition, the cognition score is higher than the average plus one standard deviation
interaction item between the publics' legal cognition and citizens' envi- as the high group, while the lower than the average minus one standard
ronmental intention has a significant and positive predictive effect on deviation is the low group. Specifically, as the level of legal awareness
citizens' environmental behavior (β = 0.29, p b 0.001). This finding among the public increases, the direct effect of activists' environmental
shows that the impact of citizens' environmental intention on citizens' intention on activists' environmental behavior continues to increase.
environmental behavior is regulated by the publics' legal cognition. To
plot the interaction effect, citizens' environmental intention and publics' 6. Discussions
legal cognition took the values of one standard deviation below (i.e., low
level) and above (i.e., high level) the mean, as shown in Fig. 2. A simple 6.1. Public environmental factors based on TPB
slope diagram, which reflects the change of the regression coefficient
with different moderate variable, is generally used to verify and illus- The results indicate that perceived behavioral control, subjective
trate the effect of a predictive variable on an outcome variable. In norms, inward attitude, and outward attitude indirectly affect these
Figs. 2 and 3, the two lines in the figure are as following: M + SD repre- two types of environmental behaviors through behavioral intentions,
sents the case when the moderate variable is one standard deviation confirming that TPB can be applied to the environmental field.
above the mean, while M-SD is one standard deviation below the Attitude plays a positive role in both environmental behavior inten-
mean. In both figures, the moderate variables and slopes are clearly pro- tions. The higher the environmental protection attitude, the stronger
portionally variable, indicating that the moderate variable positively af- the environmental intention it is. This paper divides intentions into
fects the effect of the predictive variable to the outcome variable. Taking two aspects. The outward attitude refers to the individual's view about
Fig. 2 as an example, citizen's environmental behavior is the outcome public organizations taking positive actions to protect the environment.
variable, citizen's environmental intention is the predictive variable, As individuals increasingly recognize the effectiveness of external fac-
and legal cognition is the moderator variable. The positive slope indi- tors (e.g., government, society, and law), they gradually believe in
cates that the effect of the predictive variable on outcome variable is these political, social, and legal environmental protection activities
positive, which means when one standard deviation above the average (Kilbourne and Pickett, 2008; Fransson and Gärling, 1999), and there-
level of legal cognition, citizen intention on citizen behavior signifi- fore, their environmental protection intention ultimately increases.
cantly higher than the original. Similarly, less than one standard devia- This confirms the positive correlation between environmental behav-
tion is worse. Specifically, as the level of legal awareness among the iors and individual trust in the national protection measures in the liter-
public increases, the direct effect of citizens' environmental intention ature (Kilbourne and Pickett, 2008; Leonidou et al., 2010; Yang and
on citizens' environmental behavior is also increase (Table 9). Weber, 2019). Inward attitude also affects two types of environmental
To test the moderate effect of law between activist intention and ac- protection behavior. Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory explains
tivist behavior, the results support that (Table 8) activists' environmen- this: an individual's attitude and behavior are coordinated because indi-
tal intention predicts activists' environmental behavior significantly and viduals want to maintain the balance between their attitude and behav-
positively (β = 0.31, p b 0.001). In addition, the interaction item ior to avoid cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Therefore,
individuals with a strong attitude toward environmental protection
Table 5 are more likely to take environmental actions.
Convergent and discriminant validity. Perceived behavior control has a greater impact on citizens' environ-
Latent variable IA OA SN PCC PCA CBI ABI CB AB LAW
mental behavior compared with activists' environmental behavior. The
stronger the PBC, the more environmental protection intentions in-
IA 0.88
crease. From a psychological perspective, individuals pursue conve-
OA 0.41 0.84
SN 0.30 0.40 0.83 nience and certainty, and convenience psychology is an important
PCC 0.28 0.30 0.25 0.74 factor in environmental behavior (Zhang et al., 2016; D. Li et al.,
PCA 0.21 0.03 0.43 0.38 0.82 2019). Results confirm the importance of PBC recorded in prior litera-
CBI 0.45 0.51 0.44 0.20 0.16 0.92
ture (Zhang et al., 2016; Amutenya et al., 2009; Sidique et al., 2010; X.
ABI 0.35 0.36 0.39 0.33 0.28 0.27 0.77
CB 0.26 0.22 0.31 0.43 0.28 0.64 0.35 0.88 Zhang et al., 2017).
AB 0.15 0.02 0.37 0.12 0.59 0.13 0.32 0.30 0.76 Subjective norms also have a higher impact on activists' environ-
LAW 0.08 0.12 0.10 0.20 0.11 0.13 0.12 0.12 0.13 mental behavior than citizens' environmental behavior. The greater
Note. Numbers in the diagonal row (bold) are the square of AVE. Numbers below the di- the perceived social pressure, the stronger the environmental protec-
agonal are the correlation coefficients between the constructs. tion intention is, which is consistent with empirical evidence for several
 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
Table 7
Direct effect of path analysis.
Equilibrium correlations
Inward attitude ➔ citizenship environmental intention
Outward attitude➔citizenship environmental intention
Subjective norm ➔ citizenship environmental intention
PCC ➔ citizenship environmental intention
PCA➔ activists' environmental intention
Subjective norm ➔ activists' environmental intention
Outward attitude ➔ activists' environmental intention
inward attitude ➔ activists' environmental intention
Citizenship environmental intention ➔BC
Activists' environmental intention ➔ BA
Note. Standardized estimate: path coefficient after standardized regression; PCC refers to perceived behavioral control of citizen behavior; PCA refers to perceived behavioral control of
activist behavior; BC refers to citizens' environmental behavior; BA refers to activists' environmental behavior.
specific behaviors (X. Zhang et al., 2017; Shi et al., 2017; Park and Ha,
2014). From a socio-cultural perspective, individuals are more likely to
observe or model the ideas of their group, thereby influenced in their
beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Moutinho, 1987). This point is more
prominent in China. Traditional Confucianism emphasizes “filial piety”
and harmonious relationships between people. The governance goal is
for all members of society to obey social morals and avoid rebellion
(Frederickson, 2002). Influenced by this, Chinese citizens are more will-
ing to accept the ideas of others (e.g., parents, brothers, superiors) and
put them into action.
6.2. Moderating effects of legal cognition
The empirical results indicate that the legal cognition plays a positive
and significant role in the regulation of citizens' environmental inten-
tion on citizens' environmental behavior as well as activists' environ-
mental intention on their environmental behavior. It is consistent
with the literature: Laws and regulations can promote environmental
protection behavior and help prevent pollution behavior (B. Zhang
et al., 2018).
To analyze the regulatory role on intervention intention of laws and
regulations in the process of behavior, we first investigate the perspec-
tive of laws and regulations. The environmental laws and regulations in
China are also applicable to the general classification of laws, which can
be further divided into two types of law: soft and hard (Attari et al.,
2009). Soft law provides incentives, is protective, and plays a positive
guiding role. Hard law is prohibitive, and rules out the negative prohibi-
tion of acts and legal consequences such as specific punishment mea-
sures that correspond to violations of such laws. Among China's
environmental laws, most of the laws and regulations applicable to or
specifically aimed at individual residents are incentives. Based on re-
sults, legal cognition regulates the influence of citizens' environmental
intention on behavior. In the field of daily behavior, laws and regula-
tions are mostly incentive provisions in soft law; compared with hard
Fig. 2. Moderating effect of residents' legal cognition on the relationship between citizens'
environmental protection intention and citizens' environmental protection behavior at
two levels of legal cognition; that is, for the mean, for one SD below the mean and for
the maximum obtained value (as one SD above the mean was outside the range of data).
9
Standardized estimate(β) p value C.R.
0.222 0.000 4.887
0.288 0.000 5.812
0.232 0.000 5.009
0.191 0.000 3.748
0.186 b0.05 3.252
0.201 0.000 3.348
0.203 0.000 3.578
0.179 0.000 3.472
0.288 0.000 6.014
0.232 0.000 6.902
law, they enhance the daily environmental protection intention of resi-
dents more effectively and guide residents to carry out daily environ-
mental protection behavior, which is also consistent with the
literature (Sutherland, 2010). More specifically, for residents who al-
ready have a high degree of daily environmental protection intention
and regular daily environmental protection behavior, laws and regula-
tions can strengthen their intention (Sunstein, 1996) and stimulate
their sense of responsibility. For residents with a relatively low intention
to protect the environment, laws and regulations can be instructive and
enlightening (Nader, 1965), create their environmental intentions, and
promote daily environmental behavior. The influence of activists' envi-
ronmental intention on behavior is also regulated by legal cognition. In
the field of positive behavior, laws and regulations have incentives and
safeguard provisions in soft law. Therefore, for residents who already
had a positive intention to protect the environment, laws and regula-
tions have an encouraging and enlightening effect, emphasize their
rights, and ensure that they will not be hurt. The laws and regulations
could reduce residents' risk expectations and behavioral costs (Otten
and Van der Pligt, 1992), and weaken their doubts, prompting them to
make actual positive environmental behavior (Brewer et al., 2004).
Moreover, the impact of activists' environmental intention on be-
havior is regulated by legal cognition to a greater extent, and the influ-
ence of citizens' environmental intention on behavior is relatively less-
regulated by legal cognition. Multiple factors are observed. First, the be-
havior cost of citizens' environmental behavior differs from that of ac-
tivists' environmental behavior, and citizens' environmental behavior
is more spontaneous (Fritsvold, 2009). In China, active environmental
behavior requires public participation in environmental governance
and supervision, with higher risks, higher costs, and more complex pro-
cedures, and the public is less willing in this respect and has a lower in-
tention to be active in environmental protection; additionally, citizens'
environmental behavior such as saving water and electricity and
protecting animals and plants are more inclined to the moral require-
ments (Wigley, 2007). Citizens' environmental behavior is also more
Fig. 3. Moderating effect of public legal cognition on the relationship between public
activists' environmental intention and activists' environmental behavior at two levels of
legal cognition, that is, for the mean, for one SD below the mean and for the maximum
obtained value (as one SD above the mean was outside the range of data).
10 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558

Table 8
Regression analysis of the moderating effect of public legal cognition1.

Regression equation Whole fitting index Significance of regression coefficient

Outcome variable Predictive variable R R2 F β LLCI ULCI t

Citizens' environmental behavior Public legal cognition (A) 0.43 0.18 39.90⁎⁎⁎ 0.08 −0.00 0.15 1.96
Citizen's environmental intention (B) 0.36 0.28 0.44 8.64⁎⁎⁎
A×B 0.29 0.22 0.35 8.62⁎⁎⁎

Note: LLCI stands for bootstrap lower limit, ULCI stands for bootstrap upper limit; *p b 0.05, **p b 0.01, ***p b 0.001; each continuous variable in the model is normalized and then brought
into the regression equation, the same below.

inclined to moral standards. The public needs only self-regulation and
restrictions to fulfill moral standards and engage in more ethical behav-
ior (Zipf, 1949); thus, this type of behavior is less risky, cheaper, and
simpler. The public intention is higher and the behavior is more fre-
quent; and self-regulation promotes environmental protection activi-
ties more than mandatory regulations (Trivedi et al., 2018). Therefore,
residents' personal morality and intention play a greater role in their
daily environmental protection behavior, and the role of law is relatively
small. Second, in addition to laws and regulations, implementation of
laws and regulations is notable. Enforcement determines the effective-
ness of the regulations (Akella and Cannon, 2017; Dongol and Heinen,
2012; Heyes, 2000). The stronger the implementation, the higher the
credibility of laws and regulations, and the easier it is for the public to
trust and be encouraged. Additionally, the government plays an impor-
tant role in the implementation of laws and regulations, and the cooper-
ation between the government and society can maximize the role of the
law (Lo and Fryxell, 2005; Dendler and Dewick, 2016). Because the gov-
ernment has less impact on citizens' environmental behavior of individ-
ual residents, in addition to market intervention, there are fewer other
positive measures, and for positive environmental protection behavior,
the government can implement more positive measures, for example, it
has substantial influence on the confidentiality of personal information
when reporting polluting enterprises and the adoption of residents'
suggestions, which are conducive to strengthening the enforcement of
laws and regulations. Stronger enforcement of laws and regulations
also has a greater role in regulating the behavior of residents. Therefore,
the regulatory effect of legal cognition on the influence of positive envi-
ronmental protection intention on positive environmental protection
behavior is stronger.
7. Conclusions and policy implications
7.1. Conclusions
This study employs the structural equation model to explore the de-
terminants of citizens' environmental behavior and activists' environ-
mental behavior based on the theory of planned behavior. The legal
cognition is introduced as a moderator variable to narrow the
intention–behavior gap, which provides new ideas to the policymakers
to enhance law effectiveness in regulating individual environmental be-
haviors in the developing countries with serious environmental prob-
lems. The empirical results indicate that perceived behavior control,
subjective norms, and attitudes all positively affect behavioral
intentions and indirectly affect two types of behaviors, confirming the
applicability of the planned behavior theory in citizens' environmental
behavior and activists' environmental behavior. Among them, outward
attitude has the largest direct impact on the two types of behavioral in-
tentions; perceived behavior control has a higher impact on the citizens'
environmental behavior, and the subjective norm has a higher influence
on the activists' environmental behavior. Besides, legal cognition posi-
tively moderates the relationship between environmental intentions
and behavior. As the level of the public's legal awareness increases,
the direct effect of these two types of environmental intentions on envi-
ronmental behaviors would increase continuously, suggesting that the
mandatory weaker law may also play an important role for the individ-
ual's behaviors.
7.2. Implications and suggestions
This study provides the following recommendations for relevant
government departments and legal departments based on the influenc-
ing factors of environmental behavior and the moderating effect of legal
cognition. These policy implications could shed some lights on the for-
mulation and improvement of environmental laws and regulations, es-
pecially for the developing countries facing similar serious
environmental problems.
First, considering the importance of outward attitude revealed in our
empirical study, policy guidance and legal publicity should continue to
be the backbone of the modern environmental governance system. On
one hand, society should increase the publicity of the importance and
effectiveness of environmental protection by means of policies, public
opinion, and laws to increase public attention to ecological protection,
enhancing public environmental enthusiasm. On the other hand, the
credibility of the government at different levels and NGOs should be
constructed firmly to enhance the public's confidence to ecological pro-
tection. For example, the government could regularly publish accurate
reports of environmental violations and pollution control violations to
make citizens believe in and follow the government's regulatory direc-
tion. Additionally, more people recognize the necessity of major politi-
cal change to protect the environment compared to other variables
based on the questionnaire data. Except for education from communi-
ties and schools (Chen and Tung, 2014), the government could motivate
NGOs and medias to increase the publicity of ecological and environ-
mental governance actions and effects.
Second, considering the importance of perceived behavior control,
the government should strengthen the popularity of green facilities

Table 9
Regression analysis of the moderating effect of public legal cognition2.

Regression equation Whole fitting index Significance of regression coefficient

Outcome variable Predictive variable R R2 F β LLCI ULCI t

Activists' environmental behavior Public legal cognition (A) 0.34 0.11 23.18⁎⁎⁎ 0.08 0.00 0.16 1.99⁎
Activists' environmental intention (B) 0.31 0.23 0.39 7.39⁎⁎⁎
A×B 0.15 0.08 0.22 4.01⁎⁎

Note: LLCI represents the lower limit of bootstrap, and ULCI represents the upper limit of bootstrap; *p b 0.05, **p b 0.01, ***p b 0.001; All continuous variables in the model are put into the
regression equation after standardized treatment, and the following is the same.
 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
such as recyclable trashcans and public transportation, and expand and
simplify the means of public participation in the environmental protec-
tion. On the one hand, strengthening the penetration rate of green facil-
ities can make people more enthusiastic about daily environmental
protection. For instance, Shanghai recently started to pilot compulsory
garbage sorting. This result suggests that the government should in-
crease the density of classified garbage bins, establish additional waste
collection stations and processing stations close to residents, and pro-
vide green product uniform marks to facilitate residents' recognition.
These means are expected to significantly enhance the convenience
and the public willingness to participate in the trash classification. On
the other hand, improving the platform and channels of public environ-
mental protection can enhance people's enthusiasm about environmen-
tal protection. N62% of respondents knew little or nothing for the ways
to report environmentally unfriendly behaviors, suggesting that Chi-
nese people still have limited knowledge and methods to participate
in the environmental governance. For example, China's environmental
nongovernmental organizations (environmental NGOs) did not exist
until mid- 1990s, and they are in general not active. Chinese environ-
mental NGOs are usually small in scale, poor in access to capital re-
sources, and inadequate in management systems (Tang, 2011).
Therefore, the government should enrich and simplify public reporting
channels and encourage the communities to carry out various environ-
mental activities to provide more means so as to facilitate common cit-
izens to participate in environmental governance. For example, the
government can work with NGOs to establish a public environmental
media platform and a big data center to provide people with time-
saving and economical approaches to co-governance, and the govern-
ment can use a variety of media to publicize the platform to increase
the influence of the platform on networks, on streets, and in villages
and encourage the public participate in environmental governance. Vig-
orously developing environmental protection industries and environ-
mental NGOs is also a means to improve the public's active
environmental protection behaviors. For example, relax the conditions
for establishing and optimizing management systems, grant tax-free
benefits and welfare, and establish information feedback mechanisms
to enhance the effect of incentives. All these measures can maximize
the role of PBC in generating citizens' intention to participate in environ-
mental protection.
In addition, the significant influence of subjective norms variable
also implies the importance of social norms and social expectations.
The social pressure from environmental protection enhances the enthu-
siasm of citizens to adopt environmental protection behavior. There-
fore, environmental protection education for families, schools,
communities, and the media is necessary. To create a social atmosphere
of environmental protection, we should persuade celebrities to partici-
pate in environmental protection and promote environmental policies
and laws.
More importantly, the regulatory effect of the law verified in this
study reminds the legislator to focus on the effect of the law on the res-
idents, not just the legal control and regulations of enterprises. In the
past, the government cared about the harmful effect of pollution and
emphasized the importance of environmental protection. However,
the government usually paid more attention to the activities of the
firms and companies. Something new has happened in recent years,
as environmental laws and regulations begin to lay more emphasis on
individual residents. In 2012, “Information Disclosure and Public Partic-
ipation” for the first time became an isolated chapter in China's Environ-
mental Protection Law, which identified citizen's three specific
environmental rights in legal form (i.e., obtaining environmental infor-
mation, participating in environmental protection, and supervising en-
vironmental protection). Recently, Beijing city has formally announced
to start garbage classification trials, and Beijing city would soon make
local laws and regulations for obligated garbage classification. However,
to further enhance the regulatory power, the law still needs further im-
provement and development to make the provisions more
11
comprehensive and clearer. This is the case not only for China but also
for the other developing countries that encounter similar environmen-
tal problems.
One of the possible measures is to increase the proportion of hard
law, which refers to laws and regulations that can be enforced by the
government, in the current environmental legislation system to pro-
mote public motivation of environmental protection. The government
should give financial support to citizens' environmental behaviors and
establish a public service litigation lawyer system, so that the legal
rights could be respected and protected in the litigations related with
public environmental interests. Moreover, the government should not
only protect citizens' environmental rights and supervision rights but
also create convenient conditions to facilitate and promote the residents
to exercise their legal rights effectively. For example, the government
could collect public ideas and suggestions on environmental issues reg-
ularly (e.g., by setting complaint boxes or add online feedback service in
official website) and keep complaints anonymous to encourage the par-
ticipation in the supervision of the government. Additionally, the gov-
ernment should strengthen the enforcement of laws to regulate
residents' behaviors, especially active environmental protection behav-
iors. After that, legal provisions can be applied to environmental protec-
tion—instead of being a mere piece of paper. Finally, the government
should increases its focus on the guiding role of the law on residents' be-
havior, enhance residents' awareness of environmental protection, and
promote their practice of environmental protection.
7.3. Limitations and future research
Although this is the first study to quantitatively investigate the influ-
ence of environmental law on public environmental protection activi-
ties, there are still some remaining limitations, which could be
possible research directions for future studies. One limitation of this
study is to treat environmental law as a whole bloc and we did not con-
sider the effects of different and specific provisions. Environmental law
is a relatively complex system that contains many specific aspects. Due
to the limited previous studies and time, in this paper, the environmen-
tal law is taken as a whole, and the typical law is extracted from differ-
ent slip laws for testing. The law provisions in different fields and
pollution issues are not distinguished and further analyzed. Thus,
starting from this study, future researchers can conduct specific tests
on different aspects of the law, such as the environmental protection
regulations on atmosphere, water, noise, soil, etc., and accordingly ana-
lyze the similarities and differences of the laws on public environmental
behaviors.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China (71761137001, 71403015, 71521002),
the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (9162013), the key research
program of the Beijing Social Science Foundation (17JDYJA009), the Na-
tional Key Research and Development Program of China
(2016YFA0602801, 2016YFA0602603), and the Joint Development Pro-
gram of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education. The authors
want to express our sincere gratitude to Associate Professor Dr. Lin Jia
at Beijing Institute of Technology for his helpful and useful comments
and suggestions during the revision of this paper. The authors are also
very grateful to three anonymous reviewers and Co Editor-in-Chief Prof.
Dr. Damià Barceló for their insightful comments that helped us suffi-
ciently improve the quality of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.
12 J. Chen et al. / Science of the Total Environment 714 (2020) 136558
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