Do Chinese Residents’ Perceptions of Air Pollution Affect Their Pro-Environmental Behaviors: The Moderating Role of Environmental Knowledge

Abstract

Air pollution has become an important environmental and public health problem in China; improving air quality has become one of the most important tasks of the Chinese central government in recent years. In all aspects of environmental governance, the public’s pro-environmental behavior is crucial to comprehensively improve air quality. This study used data provided by the 2021 China General Social Survey (CGSS) to explore the relationship between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior. The results of the study indicated that: (1) Residents’ subjective perception of air pollution has a significant positive impact on residents’ pro-environmental behaviors. The more serious the air pollution in the surrounding area is, the more likely residents are to adopt more pro-environmental behaviors; (2) Environmental knowledge also has a positive impact on residents’ pro-environmental behaviors and individuals with higher environmental knowledge are more likely to adopt more pro-environment behaviors; and (3) Environmental knowledge plays a positive regulating role in the relationship between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior. Individuals with higher environmental knowledge are more willing to engage in more pro-environmental behaviors when they perceive air pollution. To promote the residents’ pro-environmental behaviors, we should further strengthen the education of environmental knowledge and strengthen the disclosure of environmental information. This study provides valuable insights for China to formulate environmental governance policies, enrich the research on pro-environmental behavior to a certain extent, and provide lessons for other developing countries and high-polluting countries to find environmental governance methods.

1. Introduction

According to the World Health Organization, almost everyone (99%) breathes air that exceeds WHO guideline limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) experiencing the highest amount of exposure. Ambient (outdoor) air pollution in urban and rural areas causes fine particles that lead to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and acute and chronic respiratory diseases. Additionally, about 2.6 billion people are exposed to dangerous levels of household air pollution as a result of cooking with polluting open fires or simple stoves fueled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal waste, and crop waste), and coal [1]. In China, with rapid urbanization and industrialization, air pollution has become a significant social problem and an important public health issue [2]. To address air pollution, the Chinese government has implemented several top-down national measures, including three top-level design documents for air pollution control issued between 2013 and 2021. Alongside these efforts, various social entities are increasingly concerned about the impact of citizens’ individual environmental protection behaviors on sustainable environmental development.

In the 1860s, there was already research on pro-environmental behavior; in the 1870s, environmental psychology and public concern about the environment sparked academic discussion, expanding the study of pro-environmental behavior into a wide range of academic fields. Researchers from the fields of psychology, geography, environmental planning and design, and sociology have all contributed scientific findings to the study of pro-environmental behavior. Until now, the influencing factors and generating mechanisms of pro-environmental behaviors have been of particular concern to academic researchers [3].

At present, the discussion on the influencing factors of pro-environmental behavior mainly focuses on the macro and individual levels. The relevant achievements regarding the influence of macro factors on pro-environmental behavior mainly focus on the environmental pollution driving hypothesis [4], affluence hypothesis [5], and environmental Kuznets curve [6]. From the individual perspective, socio-demographic factors and individual psychological factors are emphasized. The influence of environmental education on pro-environmental behavior has also received further attention. In one study, individuals who had received environmental education had a higher intention of engaging in pro-environmental behavior than those who had not [7]. In the process of receiving environmental education, different educational methods may have an impact on the training effect of environmental awareness [8].

Air pollution perception, as a form of individual environmental risk perception, is considered an important factor affecting pro-environmental behavior. The stronger the environmental risk that an individual perceives, the more likely they are to make the behavioral decision to adopt pro-environmental behavior to avoid such risks. Sociology emphasizes the influence of social macro structures on individual behavior [9]. Environmental knowledge is not only the intellectual basis for individuals to make pro-environmental behavior decisions, but also represents the influence of structural factors such as social norms on individual behavior decisions, to a certain extent. Previous studies on environmental knowledge mainly focused on individuals’ understanding of environmental science knowledge [10]. In the 2021 China General Social Survey, the measurement of environmental knowledge included the measurement of individuals’ understanding of environmental policies, environmental governance and other knowledge points, so that it could better reflect the influence of social norms and other factors on pro-environmental behaviors. The content of environmental knowledge in this paper is more focused on environmental policy and environmental governance, which are also characteristics of this research.

The main research questions of this paper are as follows: First, this paper discusses whether individuals’ subjective air pollution perception affects their choice of pro-environment behavior. Second, the paper examines whether environmental knowledge affects an individual’s pro-environmental behavior. Finally, this study hopes to discuss whether people with more environmental knowledge will have more pro-environment behaviors when they perceive air pollution. In other words, this study hopes to explore whether environmental knowledge has a regulating effect on air pollution perception and pro-environment behavior.

The contributions of this research are mainly related to the following aspects: First, this paper uses CGSS2021 data and multiple linear regression to test the impact of air pollution perception and environmental knowledge on pro-environmental behavior, enriching the relevant research on pro-environmental behavior. Second, We investigated the moderating effect of environmental knowledge on the relationship between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior, which provides a certain basis for the government to promote the public’s pro-environment behavior in the future.

The structure of this paper is as follows: The second part is a literature review and proposed research hypotheses. The literature review includes related concepts of pro-environmental behavior, the impact of air pollution perception on public pro-environmental behavior, and previous studies on environmental knowledge, leading to the proposed research hypotheses based on relevant studies in the literature. In the third part, we introduce the data source, regression model, variables, and the operational process of the variables. The fourth part presents the empirical results of this study. The fifth part discusses the findings of this paper. The last part provides a summary of this paper.

2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

2.1. Pro-Environmental Behavior

First, the research should clarify the related concepts of pro-environmental behavior. In practice, the term “pro-environment behavior” is often used interchangeably with concepts such as environmentally friendly behavior and environmental protection behavior. Dillman et al. [11] pointed out that environmental behavior involves actions taken by individuals to solve and prevent ecological and environmental problems. Scannell and Gifford [9] define pro-environmental behaviors as those that reduce environmental harm and improve environmental conditions. Stern argues for a distinction between impact and actor perspectives, defining environmental behavior from an impact perspective as the extent to which it alters the availability of matter or energy in the environment, or the structure and dynamics of the ecosystem or biosphere. He categorizes these behaviors into the following four types based on their radicalism and whether they occur in the public or private sphere: radical environmental behavior such as participating in environmental demonstrations; non-radical behaviors in the public sphere such as active environmental citizenship, joining environmental groups, supporting environmental legislation, or being willing to pay higher taxes for environmental benefits; environmental behavior in the private sector such as purchasing household goods and services that meet environmental standards; and other environmentally significant actions such as engineers designing products that reduce resource consumption or pollution during manufacturing, or corporate decision-makers incorporating environmental considerations into their decisions [4,12].

Building on previous studies, we define pro-environment behavior as actions taken by individuals to support the sustainable development of the environment. Specifically, this paper considers that pro-environmental behavior includes activities such as garbage recycling and green consumption in the private sector. In the public sphere, it encompasses acts such as donations, joining environmental societies, signing petitions, and participating in demonstrations and marches. Among the pro-environmental behaviors occurring in the public sphere, there are radical pro-environmental behaviors that occur in the public sphere and non-radical pro-environmental behaviors that occur in the public sphere.

2.2. Air Pollution Perception and Pro-Environment Behavior

According to the environmental pollution hypothesis, the more serious the environmental pollution, the more likely the public is to act environmentally [13]. From the perspective of individual behavior choice motivation, the more serious the environmental pollution in the area where an individual lives, the clearer the perceived threat of environmental pollution, the higher the judgment on the severity of environmental pollution, and the more likely an individual is to engage in pro-environmental behavior. In a study of Orange County in the United States, residents who identified environmental issues as very serious threats to their health and well-being were more likely to fully engage in environmental practices, particularly recycling, conserving water, purchasing environmentally friendly products, and limiting their driving. Moreover, compared with demographic variables and political factors, individual environmental threats are more predictive of overall environmental practices [11]. As a kind of environmental pollution, when the degree of air pollution deepens and the air quality decreases, the public’s risk perception of air pollution will also change. In the face of increasingly serious environmental threats, the public is likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. A study in Shandong, China shows that when air quality is low, haze weather appears as a signal of air pollution, enabling residents to more directly understand the current environmental conditions. People will perceive higher levels of air pollution and participate in green consumption behaviors for risk-averse reasons [14]. In another study in China, the researcher introduced the concept of spatial distance into the research framework, believing that air pollution within a local spatial distance can make residents more willing to carry out environmental protection behaviors [15], but that the distance itself will also affect individuals’ perception of air pollution. When the air pollution around people is more serious, the air pollution that individuals perceive is more serious. Consequently, the public is more likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior.

The influence of environmental pollution perception on pro-environmental behavior has reached a certain consensus, both empirically and theoretically, in academic circles. At the theoretical level, protective mobility theory (PMT) and other theories have been used to explain the impact of environmental pollution perception on pro-environmental behavior. When individuals perceive a threat and are aware of effective behavioral measures that may mitigate the threat, they tend to engage in those behaviors in anticipation of having a positive impact [16,17]. In this study, we discussed the impact of the perception of environmental pollution, the single factor of air pollution perception, on pro-environment behavior, and hoped to obtain some policy suggestions and practices through our discussion. Therefore, we need to further explain the relationship between the variables of pro-environment behavior used in this study and the perception of air pollution. First, in this study, our measurement of pro-environmental behavior mainly includes the following items: garbage sorting; green consumption; joining environmental groups; signing petitions; donating money to environmental groups; and participating in protests and demonstrations related to environmental issues. We think that it is meaningful to include these pro-environmental behaviors in the discussion. The classification and recycling of domestic waste is one of the components of the domestic waste treatment system. Using kitchen waste as an example, separating the high water-content items from kitchen waste, which account for a relatively large proportion of domestic waste, from other garbage can avoid the creation of a large amount of CH4, thus greatly reducing the impact of the domestic waste treatment system on photochemical smog; this also has a certain impact on the greenhouse effect [18]. The relationship between green consumption and air pollution has also been demonstrated in some studies. The green purchasing behavior of residents in smog-infested cities will be affected by their own risk perception [19]; green purchases, such as buying clean energy instead of coal, can also improve air quality [20,21]. Social actions, such as joining environmental protection organizations, signing petitions, donating money to environmental protection organizations, and participating in protests and demonstrations related to environmental issues, are conducive to increasing participants’ environmental knowledge and environmental awareness. At the same time, they are also conducive to linking governments, enterprises, and other subjects in promoting other subjects’ pro-environmental behaviors and environmental improvement behaviors. In summary, we believe that it is meaningful to take these behaviors as components of pro-environmental behaviors and explore the impact of air pollution perception on pro-environmental behaviors.

Therefore, we propose Hypothesis 1:

H1. 

There is a significant positive correlation between air pollution perception and the public’s pro-environment behavior.

2.3. Environmental Knowledge and Pro-Environment Behavior

Environmental knowledge can include knowledge related to environmental issues, environmental science, environmental governance, etc. [22]. Environmental knowledge can generally be defined as any information that affects people’s environmental attitudes and their participation in pro-environmental behaviors [23]. Environmental knowledge can be defined as the ability of numerous ecological symbols, concepts, and behavioral characteristics to relate with environmental protection [24,25]. Environmental knowledge can be divided into subjective knowledge and objective knowledge. Subjective knowledge focuses on people’s own understanding of issues related to the environment, while objective knowledge refers to the actual knowledge that people have [25,26]. Environmental knowledge can also be divided into general and specific environmental knowledge [27]. General environmental knowledge can be defined as general knowledge about the facts, concepts, and relationships of the natural environment and its major ecosystems, while specific environmental knowledge refers to knowledge related to specific environmental issues [28]. Therefore, this study defines environmental knowledge as environment-related knowledge that can have an impact on individuals’ environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviors, including content related to environmental issues, environmental science, environmental policy, environmental governance, and other topics. The environmental knowledge level of residents refers to their understanding of environmental knowledge.

If individuals know nothing about environmental problems or the positive actions they can take, they are unlikely to consciously care about the environment or act in a way that is beneficial to the environment [29]. This is one of the important internal factors through which environmental knowledge can influence the public’s pro-environment behavior. Environmental knowledge is a significant and independent predictor of pro-environmental behavior [30]. Based on a survey of 249 households in two parishes in Peterborough, a study evaluated the impact of knowledge about environmental and energy issues on the potential pro-environmental behaviors of households. The results showed that environmental knowledge was positively correlated with the pro-environmental behavior of households with respect to energy savings [31]. Therefore, we propose Hypothesis 2:

H2. 

Environmental knowledge is significantly positively correlated with public pro-environmental behavior.

In the study of pro-environmental behavior, the modulating effect of environmental knowledge has been paid a significant amount of attention by researchers and has been proven by many studies. Azila Jaini et al. [32] investigated the impact of the use of environmental protection products and social media on consumers’ awareness of environmental behavior by using 118 online responses collected on SmartPLS software (SmartPLS 4). The research results showed that the use of environmental protection products and social media had a significant impact on the awareness of environmental protection and at the same time supported the moderating effect of knowledge. The higher consumer awareness of green products can improve the consumer’s environmental awareness, so as to create environmental behavior. Muhammad et al. [33] conducted a study on small- and medium-sized enterprises in Malaysia, and the results showed that there was a strong correlation between green innovation practice and consumers’ resistance to green product innovation, and that environmental knowledge moderated the relationship between green innovation practices and consumers’ resistance to green product innovation. Through a study on live-streaming in China, Wu et al. [34] pointed out that the influence of brand familiarity on green perceived value is regulated by the environmental knowledge of anchors.

When individuals perceive the risk of air pollution, the higher the level of environmental knowledge, the more likely the individuals are to understand the causes of air pollution and the responsibilities of the public in environmental governance, and the more likely they are to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Therefore, we propose the following Hypothesis 3:

H3. 

Environmental knowledge positively moderates the relationship between air pollution perception and public pro-environmental behavior.

The research framework of this study is shown in Figure 1.

3. Methodology

3.1. Data Source

The Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), started in 2003, is the earliest national, comprehensive, and continuous academic survey project in China. The CGSS systematically and comprehensively collects data from Chinese society—communities, families and individuals—in order to summarize the trend of social change in China, discuss issues of great scientific and practical significance, promote the openness and sharing of scientific research in China, provide data for international comparative research, and act as a multidisciplinary economic and social data collection platform.

CGSS2021 is a cross-sectional survey carried out by the CGSS project in 2021. The sampling procedure adopts multi-stage stratified sampling; the survey mode is by interview, and the population covers adults over 18 years old. CGSS2021 contains a total of 700 variables, including the core module and topic module of the 2021 survey for all respondents. The following modules were also randomly selected by one-third of the respondents: the additional East Asian Social Survey (EASS) health module; the health module of the International Social Survey (ISSP); and the environment module of the International Social Survey (ISSP). The total number of samples in CGSS2021 is 8148, and the final selection of effective samples in this study was 1901. Among the samples we screened, 931 were female, accounting for 48.97% of the total sample, and 970 were male, accounting for 51.03% of the total sample. The maximum age was 94 years, the minimum was 18 years, and the average age was 53 years. There were 1028 rural residents, accounting for 54.08% of the total sample, and 873 non-agricultural residents, accounting for 45.92% of the total sample. From the perspective of gender, age, urban and rural areas and other factors, the sample data are representative to a certain extent and can represent the broader Chinese population.

3.2. Variable Selection and Assignment

Dependent Variable: The dependent variable of this study was residents’ pro-environmental behavior. This involved questions such as: “Do you often deliberately separate glass, aluminum cans, plastic, or newspapers for recycling?”; “Do you often choose not to buy certain products for the sake of protecting the environment?”; “Do you belong to any organizations that protect the environment?”; “In the past five years, have you signed a petition on an environmental issue?”; “In the past five years, have you donated money to environmental groups?”; and “In the past five years, have you participated in a protest or demonstration on an environmental issue?”. Each of these six questions was assigned a value of “1” for participation and “0” for absence, and the total score was calculated to obtain a pro-environmental behavior score for each sample.

Core Independent Variables: The air pollution perception used in this study is an individual subjective variable. The question is: “How serious do you think the air pollution is in your area?”. Responses were assigned values as follows: “very serious” = 5; “serious” = 4; “general” = 3; “less serious” = 2; and “not a problem” = 1 for the air pollution perception variable.

Environmental knowledge scores were measured by 14 questions related to the question “How well do you know the following items or topics?”. The content included, as follows: “ecological civilization”; “ecological compensation”; “ecological protection red line”; “ecological civilization system reform”; “National ecological civilization pilot zone”; “ecological civilization construction target evaluation and assessment”; “land main functional area”; “circular economy”; “environmental protection inspector inspection”; “air pollution prevention action plan”; “water pollution prevention action plan”; “soil pollution prevention action plan”; “measures to protect public participation in the environment”; and “Party and government leaders’ responsibility for ecological environmental damage”. Responses were scored as follows: “do not know” = 0; “know some” = 1; “know more” = 2; and “know very well” = 3. These scores were then summed to obtain personal environmental knowledge scores.

Control Variables: Controlling variables in this study were the individual’s gender, years of education, political status, annual income, and household registration. Among these, gender was a binary variable. Education level was converted into years of education, as follows: “no education” = 0; “private school or literacy class” = 1; “primary school” = 6; “junior high school” = 9; “vocational high school”; “ordinary high school”; “technical secondary school” and “technical school” = 12; “junior college (adult higher education)” and “junior college (formal higher education)” = 15; “undergraduate college (adult higher education)” and “undergraduate college (formal higher education)” = 16; and “graduate and above” = 19. Age was a continuous variable. Political status was the binary variable of CCP members and non-CCP members. Household registration was a binary variable of agricultural household registration and non-agricultural household registration. The measure of an individual’s income was the logarithm of an individual’s annual income.

Second, when considering the influence of environmental concern on individual pro-environmental behavior, we included environmental concern into the control variable. Environmental concern was measured using the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale. There are 15 items in the original scale. Chinese scholar Hong Dayong believes that the fourth and the fourteenth items should be deleted according to the actual situation in China, so as to improve the reliability and validity of the scale [35]. Therefore, we adopted the remaining 13 items of the new ecological scale as environmental concern variables for this study. Items 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 are positive questions. The specific measurement topic includes, as follows: “1. The current total population is approaching the limit that the earth can bear”; “3. Human’s destruction of nature often leads to disastrous consequences”; “5. At present, human beings are abusing and destroying the environment”; “7. Animals and plants have the same right to existence as human beings”; “9. Although human beings have special abilities, they are still subject to the laws of nature”; “11. The earth is like a spaceship, with very limited space and resources”; “13. The balance of nature is very fragile and can be easily disturbed”; and “15. If everything continues as it is, we will soon suffer a serious environmental disaster”. The statements were assigned the following values: “totally disagree”, “somewhat disagree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “somewhat agree”, “fully agree” as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. Items 2, 6, 8, 10, and 12 are negative questions, and the specific measurement questions included, as follows: “2. People are important and can change the natural environment to meet their own needs”; “6. The natural resources of the earth are abundant if we know how to exploit them”; “8. The self-balancing capacity of nature is strong enough to cope with the shocks of modern industrial society”; “10. The claim that humanity is facing an ‘environmental crisis’ is an overstatement”; and “12. Human beings are born to be masters, to rule the rest of nature”. The statements were assigned the following values: “totally disagree”; “more disagree”; “neither agree nor disagree”; “more agree”; “completely agree” as 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 respectively. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale after deleting items was 0.7442, which is considered as having a high degree of internal consistency and can be regarded as a single-dimension cumulative scale, which can be directly summed to obtain the environmental variables of interest.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the variables included in the regression.

Variable	Obs	M	SD	Min	Max
Pro-environment behavior	1901	1.577	0.938	0	5
Perception of air pollution	1901	2.240	1.398	0	5
Environmental knowledge	1901	17.930	5.540	0	53
Gender	1901	0.510	0.500	0	1
Income logarithm	1901	10.107	1.382	4.605	16.117
Education years	1901	9.561	4.585	0	19
Politics status	1901	0.153	0.360	0	1
Urban	1901	0.459	0.498	0	1
Environmental concern	1901	26.614	7.709	0	40

presents descriptive statistics of the main variables used for regression in CGSS2021.

3.3. Methods

In this study, a correlation analysis of the core variables—air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior—was conducted to address the multicollinearity problem among these variables. Subsequently, multiple linear regression was used to explore the relationships between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior. The dependent variable was pro-environmental behavior, while the control variables included individual gender, income (logarithm), years of education, political status, urban versus rural location, and environmental concern. Model 1 examines the relationship between control variables and pro-environmental behavior; Model 2 explores the relationship between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior, including control variables; Model 3 analyzes the relationship between environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behavior, with control variables; Model 4 investigates the interaction between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior, including control variables; and Model 5 focuses on the moderating effect of environmental knowledge on pro-environmental behavior.

4. Empirical Results

4.1. Correlation Analysis of Core Variables

The dependent variable in this study is public pro-environmental behavior, while the core explanatory variables are individual air pollution perception and individual environmental knowledge. To preliminarily assess the relationships between public pro-environmental behavior, individual air pollution perception, and individual environmental knowledge, Pearson correlation analysis was conducted on these three variables. According to the correlation coefficients shown in

Table 2. Correlation analysis of the variables included in the regression.

	(1)	(2)	(3)
(1) Pro-environment behavior	1
(2) Perception of air pollution	0.148 ***	1
(3) Environmental knowledge	0.274 ***	0.062 ***	1

Note. *** p < 0.01.

, individual air pollution perception and environmental knowledge both have significant correlations with individual pro-environmental behavior at the 0.001 level, with correlation coefficients of 0.148 and 0.274, respectively. The correlation coefficient between air pollution perception and environmental knowledge is 0.062, indicating a low level of correlation between these core variables. A multicollinearity test was performed on the three variables, yielding a variance inflation factor of 1.00, which suggests that there is no multicollinearity among the independent variables, allowing for further analysis.

4.2. Pro-Environment Behavior, Air Pollution Perception, and Environmental Knowledge

Models 1–5 are the outcomes of multiple linear regression analyses. Model 1 primarily examines the influence of control variables on pro-environmental behavior. Building on Model 1, Model 2 explores the correlation between perceptions of air pollution and pro-environmental behavior. Further to Model 1, Model 3 investigates the impact of knowledge about environmental policies on pro-environmental behavior. Model 4 integrates both air pollution perception and environmental knowledge, extending Model 1. Model 5 introduces the moderating effect of environmental knowledge, building upon the variables included in Model 4.

Table 3. Multiple linear regression analysis of pro-environmental behavior, air pollution perception, and environmental knowledge.

Variable		Pro-Environment Behavior
		M1	M2	M3	M4	M5
Perception of air pollution			0.055 ***		0.058 ***	−0.037
			(0.015)		(0.015)	(0.051)
Environmental knowledge				0.033 ***	0.034 ***	0.022 **
				(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.007)
Gender		−0.088 *	−0.075	−0.108 **	−0.095 *	−0.095 *
		(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)
Income logarithm		0.056 **	0.047 *	0.050 **	0.041 *	0.043 *
		(0.019)	(0.019)	(0.018)	(0.018)	(0.018)
Education years		0.023 ***	0.021 ***	0.014 *	0.012 *	0.012 *
		(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)
Politics status		0.123 *	0.133 *	0.050	0.061	0.064
		(0.060)	(0.060)	(0.060)	(0.060)	(0.060)
Urban		0.006	0.001	−0.003	−0.009	−0.011
		(0.048)	(0.048)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)
Environmental concern		0.019 ***	0.018 ***	0.015 ***	0.014 ***	0.014 ***
		(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Perception of air pollution * Knowledge of environmental policy						0.005 *
						(0.003)
Constant		0.316	0.314	−0.014	−0.020	0.173
		(0.168)	(0.168)	(0.170)	(0.169)	(0.195)
N		1901	1901	1901	1901	1901
R2		0.082	0.088	0.114	0.121	0.123

Note. Standard errors in parentheses, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

shows the results of multiple linearity. Figure 2a shows the fitting line between air pollution perception and pro-environment behavior, and Figure 2b shows the fitting line between environmental knowledge and pro-environment behavior.

Model 1 primarily assesses the impact of control variables on pro-environmental behavior. Holding other variables constant, the regression analysis showed that gender significantly affected pro-environmental behavior, with males generally scoring 0.088 units lower than females (β = −0.088, p < 0.05). A significant positive correlation was observed between the logarithm of income and pro-environmental behavior, with an increase of 0.056 units for every unit increase in the logarithm of income (β = 0.056, p < 0.01). Years of education positively influenced individual pro-environmental behavior, which increased by 0.023 units for each additional year of education (β = 0.239, p < 0.001). Political affiliation was also significantly correlated with pro-environmental behavior, with Communist Party members scoring 0.123 units higher than non-party individuals (β = 0.123, p < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior, with an increase of 0.019 units for every unit increase in environmental concern (β = 0.019, p < 0.001).

In Model 2, air pollution perception was added to the model, and the regression analysis showed a significant positive effect on pro-environmental behavior (β = 0.055, p < 0.001), supporting Hypothesis 1. For each unit increase in air pollution perception, pro-environmental behavior increased by an average of 0.055 units. This is consistent with the results of previous studies [36].

In Model 3, environmental knowledge was added to the model to measure its correlation with pro-environmental behavior. The results showed a significant positive correlation (β = 0.033, p < 0.001), with pro-environmental behavior increasing by 0.033 units for each unit increase in environmental knowledge, thus supporting Hypothesis 2. In this study, the positive effect of environmental knowledge on pro-environmental behavior was confirmed, but the effect of environmental knowledge has not been verified in other studies [37]. This may be because the measured content of environmental knowledge is related to the underlying variables implicit in the content.

In Model 4, both air pollution perception and environmental knowledge were added to the model simultaneously while controlling for other variables. The results indicated a significant positive effect of air pollution perception (β = 0.058, p < 0.001) and a significant positive correlation with environmental knowledge (β = 0.034, p < 0.001).

In Model 5, the moderating effect of environmental knowledge was added; the interaction between environmental knowledge and air pollution perception was found to be significantly positive (β = 0.005, p < 0.05). This indicates that environmental knowledge strengthens the influence of air pollution perception on pro-environmental behavior, with more knowledgeable residents experiencing a stronger impact of air pollution perception on their behaviors, supporting Hypothesis 3.

4.3. Robustness Test

We used the method of increasing control variables to test robustness. According to Wan et al. [38,39], it is believed that individuals’ social trust will affect residents’ pro-environmental behavior; therefore, this study incorporated social trust into the benchmark model.

Social trust influences the public’s environmental awareness and pro-environmental behavior intention [40], which is an important reason why we added social trust as an important variable in the robustness test. First, trust is an important reason for common efforts for the benefit of social goals [41]. Trust is, to some extent, an important driver of commitment, reciprocity, and collaboration. Second, social trust is conducive to people’s awareness of social interests beyond personal interests, which is an important reason why individuals are willing to engage in pro-environmental behaviors [42]. Third, a good trust environment can avoid free-riding behavior in pro-environmental behavior to some extent [43]. Therefore, we believe that social trust should be an important factor influencing pro-environmental behavior.

The measurement of social trust in this study was obtained from the topic of CGSS2021—“Generally speaking, you and others agree that the vast majority of people in this society can be trusted”; the values of “strongly disagree”, “somewhat disagree”, “cannot agree to disagree”, “relatively agree”, and “very agree”, were, respectively, assigned as “1”, “2”, “3”, “4” and “5” in order to measure the social trust of each sample.

Table 4. Robustness test results after adding social trust.

Variable	Pro-Environment Behavior
	M1	M2	M3	M4	M5
Perception of air pollution		0.058 *** (0.015)		0.061 *** (0.015)	−0.035 (0.051)
Environmental knowledge			0.033 *** (0.004)	0.034 *** (0.004)	0.022 ** (0.007)
Gender	−0.090 *	−0.077	−0.109 **	−0.096 *	−0.096 *
	(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)	(0.042)
Income logarithm	0.058 **	0.049 **	0.051 **	0.042 *	0.044 *
	(0.019)	(0.019)	(0.018)	(0.018)	(0.018)
Education years	0.023 ***	0.021 ***	0.014 *	0.012 *	0.012 *
	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)
Politics status	0.111	0.121 *	0.045	0.054	0.058
	(0.061)	(0.061)	(0.060)	(0.060)	(0.060)
Urban	0.002	−0.004	−0.007	−0.013	−0.015
	(0.048)	(0.048)	(0.047)	(0.047)	(0.047)
Social trust	0.038	0.045 *	0.021	0.028	0.028
	(0.021)	(0.021)	(0.021)	(0.021)	(0.021)
Environmental concern	0.018 *** (0.003)	0.017 *** (0.003)	0.015 *** (0.003)	0.014 *** (0.003)	0.014 *** (0.003)
Perception of air pollution * Environmental knowledge					0.005 * (0.003)
Constant	0.415 *	0.369 *	0.076	0.028	0.078
	(0.187)	(0.187)	(0.187)	(0.187)	(0.213)
N	1893	1893	1893	1893	1893
R2	0.062	0.071	0.101	0.110	0.122

Note. Standard errors in parentheses, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

reports the model results between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior after social trust was added. Model 1 represents the relationship between the control variable and the pro-environment behavior. On the basis of Model 1, Model 2 included the variable of individual subjective air pollution perception; the results showed that after adding the variable of social trust, air pollution perception was still significantly positively correlated with pro-environmental behaviors. Model 3 showed that environmental knowledge was also significantly positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior. Model 5 showed that the higher the level of environmental knowledge, the more likely people are to engage in more pro-environmental behaviors when they consider air pollution. The results of Model 1–Model 5 are basically consistent with the previous conclusions, which indicates that the conclusions of this paper have a certain robustness.

5. Discussion

In this paper, we examined the relationship between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior using data from the CGSS2021 survey. A significant positive correlation exists between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior, which may be due to residents’ motivation to participate in pro-environmental behavior as a means of risk avoidance. To encourage public participation in pro-environmental behavior, it is essential to enhance the dissemination of environmental information and to strengthen environmental education. The disclosure of environmental information enables residents to intuitively perceive air pollution and other pollution conditions around them, thereby enabling them to form an objective risk perception and enhancing their ability to engage in pro-environmental behavior.

Second, environmental knowledge is also significantly positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior; environmental knowledge plays a positive regulating role in the relationship between air pollution perception and pro-environmental behavior, which is in line with our initial research expectations. From the objective basis of realizing pro-environment behavior, individuals with higher environmental knowledge levels are more likely to understand the causes of air pollution and how to engage in pro-environment behavior. From the perspective of subjective motivation, individuals with higher environmental knowledge levels are more likely to recognize the environmental pollution caused by human activities and the individual’s responsibilities towards air pollution control.

On the policy-level discussion, at the policy-application level, we offer a possible train of thought for policymakers based on our research. First, based on the results of this paper, both air pollution perception and environmental knowledge play a positive role in pro-environmental behavior, and environmental knowledge plays a positive moderating role. On the basis of not considering the increase in pro-environmental behavior caused by the increase in external pollution, it is feasible for policymakers to further promote the disclosure of environmental information and the disclosure of pollutant information [44]. It is not only the government that can participate in the disclosure of environmental information, but also relevant companies, which should be subject to extensive supervision. It is necessary to further build an environmental governance system with government as the lead, enterprises as the main body, and public participation [45]. Therefore, it is necessary to issue relevant information disclosure policies and pollutant supervision policies at the macro level. On the other hand, environmental knowledge plays a very important role in promoting pro-environmental behavior. Daily dissemination of environmental knowledge is an important source from which individuals can receive environmental knowledge; it is also a feasible policy to incorporate environmental education into the formal education system. From the topic of environmental knowledge measurement, environmental education should include not only environmental science knowledge, but also environmental policy knowledge.

6. Conclusions

Using CGSS2021 data, we investigated the relationships between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior. The study measured pro-environmental behavior from two dimensions—private and public—assessed using six questions. Within the public dimension, behaviors were further differentiated into radical and non-radical actions, allowing for a more nuanced assessment of individual pro-environmental engagement. Air pollution perception is primarily concerned with individuals’ perceptions of pollution levels in their local environment. The measurement of environmental knowledge encompasses recent Chinese policies and knowledge related to environmental governance and pollution control.

The findings indicate that both air pollution perception and environmental knowledge are significantly and positively associated with public pro-environmental behavior. Furthermore, environmental knowledge exerts a positive moderating effect on the relationship between air pollution perception and public pro-environmental behavior. However, the paper has some limitations. First, although the measurement of pro-environment behavior was derived from two dimensions, we combined the questions from the two dimensions into the overall pro-environment behavior variable and did not separately explore the impact of air pollution and environmental knowledge on pro-environment behavior occurring in the public sphere or the impact of air pollution and environmental knowledge on pro-environment behavior occurring in the private sphere. Nor did we measure whether the regulating effect of environmental knowledge in these two situations is significant. Second, integrating objective air pollution data could further refine the exploration of the interplay among air pollution levels, perceptions, and pro-environmental behaviors. Therefore, further research could be carried out from the following aspects. The first aspect is to further classify and discuss pro-environment behavior. Based on the classification of pro-environment behaviors, the paper discusses whether air pollution perception has the same effect on different types of pro-environment behaviors, and whether the moderating effect of environmental knowledge still plays a role in this process. The other aspect is to incorporate objective data on air pollution into the model. Some excellent studies in this section provide a good model for how we can calculate objective data on air pollution. In one study, researchers proposed a Multi-AP learning network that estimates pixel-level (grid-level) concentrations of multiple air pollutant species based on fixed-site measurements and multi-source urban characteristics, including land use information, traffic data, and meteorological conditions [46]. Although our current research mainly focuses on the use of subjective pollution perception data, the inclusion of objective data will provide us with a broader thinking space with which to further explore the relationship between air pollution and pro-environmental behavior. The inclusion of objective data on pollutants will increase the logical chain of our study; some theories, such as stimulus–organism response (SOR) theory, could then be applied. Objective pollution data are external stimuli, while pollution perception is a subjective feeling. How the stimuli and subjective feelings affect residents’ pro-environment behaviors, whether the effects are comparable, and whether there is some conduction relationship between them and pro-environment behaviors, are research directions that require further exploration. In the process, further excellent research on pollutant calculation should be conducted. A special emphasis should also be placed on the choice of model for this study. The use of multiple linear regression is quite reasonable in this study, but it also has its limitations. For example, it is very possible that some important variables have been missed that are not included in the model, and it is also easy to overlook the possibility of mutual influence between variables. Finding a more suitable empirical model is also an important direction for future research.

This study explores the relationship between air pollution perception, environmental knowledge, and pro-environment behavior. The stakeholders directly involved include, as follows: the government, which has the responsibility to environmental information disclosure, supervision of the environmental pollutants, and transmission of the necessary environmental knowledge to residents; enterprises, which are important pollution discharge subjects and environmental information disclosure subjects; and residents who are engaged in pro-environment behavior. Further applications of this research mainly include the following aspects. At the theoretical level, this study verified the correlation between air pollution perception and residents’ pro-environmental behavior, as well as the moderating effect of environmental knowledge, which has enriched the relevant research. At the policy level, this study provides a decision-making basis for the government to further promote environmental information disclosure and environmental knowledge education. It is conducive to the government itself and requires enterprises and other subjects to further strengthen the disclosure of environmental information.