Protective Behaviors Against Particulate Air Pollution: Self-construal, Risk Perception, and Direct Experience in the Theory of Planned Behavior

ABSTRACT

Guided by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study examines how self-construal, risk perception, and direct experience change the relative importance of psychosocial motivators in predicting intentions to engage in three different protective behaviors against particulate air pollution. An online survey of 1245 South Koreans (M_age = 42.22, 50% male) showed that self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of self-protective intentions. For those who construed the self as independent and perceived a higher risk, self-efficacy was a more important determinant for protective intentions. Self-efficacy exerted less influence on the formation of behavioral intentions, for those whom risk impacted personally. This study contributes to the theoretical extension of the TPB, by addressing specific conditions under which the TPB improves its predictive power. This study also provides practical insights into communicating environmental risk and promoting self-protective behaviors against the risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Particulate air pollution
• protective behavior
• risk perception
• self-construal
• theory of planned behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The two surveys had no overlapping respondents. Out of 7105 invited panel members, 1296 initiated and 668 completed the first survey. The second survey invited 5441 panel members, and of 1072 who initiated, 692 completed the survey. Due to the quality checks, 23 and 92 were dropped, respectively from the first and second survey.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Technology Development Program to Solve Climate Changes through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT (2019M1A2A2103953).