How does environmental knowledge translate into pro-environmental behaviors?: The mediating role of environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions

This paper explores how general environmental knowledge shapes environmental attitudes, behavioral intentions, and pro-environmental behaviors in relation to the surrounding environment. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping estimation was conducted to assess a causal chain from environmental knowledge to pro-environmental behaviors with a nationally representative sample of 2824 respondents from China. The results show that environmental knowledge has a significant positive effect on environmental attitudes, environmental attitudes have a significant positive effect on environmental behavioral intentions and pro-environmental behaviors, and environmental behavioral intentions have a significant positive effect on pro-environmental behaviors. We also concluded that although environmental knowledge has no significant direct effects on pro-environmental behaviors, it is a crucial distal variable whose significant effect is fully mediated by environmental attitudes and environmental behavioral intentions. The results of the multigroup SEM showed that the moderating effect of external context on the relationship between environmental behavioral intentions and pro-environmental behaviors and various demographic variables (e.g., gender, urban vs. rural residence, education level, and region) have diverse effects on the model in this study. [Display omitted] •Assessing a causal chain from environmental knowledge (EK) to pro-environmental behaviors (PEB).•Assessing the mediating role of environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions in transition from EK to PEB.•EK itself does not work, only once the affective system is activated does protective action become probable.•The multigroup SEM showed that various demographic variables have diverse effects on the model in this study.