How Symbols and Social Interaction Influence the Experienced Utility of Sustainable Lifestyle Guiding Policies: Evidence from Eastern China

As the key to mitigating climate change, a sustainable lifestyle has become a focus of environment policy. Past studies have largely neglected the symbols of sustainable lifestyle guiding policies and failed to capture its effect on the experienced utility of sustainable lifestyle guiding policies (EUSLGP). To address this drawback, symbolic value was incorporated into a model consisting of social interaction and the EUSLGP. With data collected from 3257 respondents in Eastern China, ordinary least squares were applied to examine hypotheses and two-stage least squares based on the instrumental variable to verify the results. Results show that symbolic value combines self-expression value, relationship consolidation value, group identification value, and status-showing value, and is positively associated with EUSLGP. Social interaction plays a moderating role in the association between symbolic value and EUSLGP. Moreover, significant regional differences are discovered in the identified relationships. Consequently, policy suggestions, covering symbolic value, social interaction, and regional conditions, are proposed to enhance the EUSLGP for other countries and regions.