Social Capital, Environmental Knowledge, and Pro-Environmental Behavior

As the value form of public access to environmental information, the impact of social capital on pro-environmental behavior cannot be ignored. Based on the data of the Chinese General Social Survey 2013 (CGSS2013), this study measures social capital from four aspects—social trust, social norms, social network, and social participation—and it empirically tests the impact of social capital on private and public pro-environmental behavior. The study finds that social capital helps promote pro-environmental behavior. Specifically, the more the public abides by social norms, the higher the degree of social participation, and the stronger the willingness to adopt private and public pro-environmental behaviors. However, the improvement of social trust only has a significant impact on the private environmental behaviors, and the expansion of the social network scale only has a significant impact on the public pro-environmental behaviors. The enhancement of social capital enriches environmental knowledge and promotes pro-environmental behaviors. The mechanism test shows that environmental knowledge plays an intermediary role in the path of social capital affecting individual pro-environmental behavior. The improvement of social capital has a significant impact on the environmental knowledge of individuals with high subjective social class. The gender heterogeneity of social capital affecting environmental knowledge mainly stems from social trust and social network. The stronger the degree of social trust, the richer the environmental knowledge of women, and the social network mainly affects the knowledge level of men. In addition, the publics in the southern region are more likely to be affected by social trust and improve environmental knowledge. Based on the above research conclusions, this paper puts forward policy suggestions on institutional aspects, such as increasing support for informal environmental organizations, carrying out differentiated sustainable development education, and improving the mechanism of environmental information communication.