The phenomenon and mechanism of intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors

Abstract

: There is a phenomenon of intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Ample studies on intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes primarily focus on environmental values, environmental concern, sustainable consumer attitudes, while researches on intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental behaviors pay much attention to energy-saving behaviors, sustainable consumer behaviors, and recycling behaviors and reuse behaviors. The intergenerational transmission has three interdependent pathways of socialization: (1) parents influence their children, through modeling learning, parent-child communication, parent-child participation; (2) children influence their parents, that is, the process of reverse intergenerational transmission; (3) parents and children are influenced by the shared social and cultural environment, that is, the process of cultural acculturation. In the future, it is necessary to strengthen the research on the intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in the context of Chinese culture, and explore its internal mechanism in depth.