The Effect Of Chinese Environmental Values On Multi-featured Environmental Decision Making

Environmental decision making is complicated because it is not a single-featured decision making process but a multi-featured one. Environmental issues often are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, by strongly delayed consequences, and by consequences that occur at distant places and are-therefore-borne by others. Thus, the temporal distance, probability distance and interpersonal distance of environmental outcomes will inevitably take important roles in severity assessment. These psychological distances may cause people underestimating severity of environmental outcomes which usually not occur for sure, now, and to oneself.Values were considered to influence ecological decision making from the perspective of intertemporal choice, risky choice and social decision making. Cultural values are considered to influence perception and severity assessment of environmental outcomes. Many researches showed that Chinese cultural values (CCVs) could promote people to value future goals and outcomes, attach importance to environmental risks, and encourage pro-environmental decision, because CCVs advocated altruism and environmentalism. Chinese environmental values (CEVs) are part of CCVs, which will have direct and most influence on environmental decision making and behaviors. CEVs will affect environmental outcome evaluation and decision making along with psychological distances. Thus the present study the influence of CEVs on multi-featured environmental decision making using water resource as an example. This study included five parts:Part1investigated the content of CEVs; Part2investigated the effect of CEVs on water intertemporal decision making; Part3investigated the effect of CEVs on water risky decision making; Part4investigated the effect of CEVs on water social decision making; Part5investigated the effect of CEVs on water multi-featured decision making.Part1concentrated on the content of CEVs. The results showed that CEVs consist of six dimensions, namely natural and contented, modest and self-discipline, interpersonal harmonious, family-focused, just and altruistic, and humanitarianism.Part2included two experiments:Experiment1investigated the effect of CEVs on delay discounting rate of water resource. The results showed that CEVs was negatively related to delay discounting rate of water resource. Experiment2investigated the effect of CEVs on support water resource related policies. The results showed that participants who are high in CEVs will be more supportive for the policies with short-term negative economic consequences and long-term positive environmental consequences, as compared to individuals low in CEVs. It was also demonstrated that CEVs can influence supportive for the policies with negative economic consequences and positive environmental consequences through the mediating role of future time perspective.Part3included two experiments:Experiment1investigated the effect of CEVs on water resource risky choices. The results showed that CEVs could positively predict water resource related risky choices through the mediating role of environmental risk perception. Experiment2investigated the effect of CEVs on severity assessment of water resource determination of different possibility. The results showed that participants who are high in CEVs didn't discount severity assessment of water resource determination, while participants low in CEVs did.Part4included three experiments:Experiment1investigated the effect of CEVs severity assessment of water resource determination happening on different people. The results showed that participants who are low in CEVs didn't discount severity assessment of water resource determination, while participants high in CEVs did. Experiment2investigated the effect of CEVs on waste water decision making. The results showed that CEVs was negatively related to the amount of waste water discharged, while positively related to social discounting degree. Experiment3investigated the effect of CEVs on water intake decision making. The results showed that CEVs was negatively related to the amount of water intake, while positively related to social discounting degree. It was also showed that CEVs could positively predict amount of water intake through the mediating role of interpersonal trust.Part5included two experiments:In experiment1,170participants were asked to decide how much waste water they would discharge in intertemporal condition and risky condition with victims being themselves and others. The results of the experiment showed that CEVs help reduce the emission of waste water, in the mean time the correlation between CEVs and social discounting degree became insignificant. Experiment2investigated the effect of CEVs on water intake decision making in intertemporal condition and risky condition. The results showed that CEVs was negatively related to the amount of water intake, in the mean time the correlation between CEVs and social discounting degree became insignificant.In the end, the theory implications of the results to CEVs, psychological distance and construal level theory, environmental decision making, and other decision making theory were concluded.