The Effect Of Awareness Of Consequences On Behaviour Intention To Reduce Meat Consumption

Besides benefiting public health,controlling meat consumption is considered as a low-cost and effective strategy to mitigate climate change and protect the environment.But the existence of the awareness gap,namely the lack of knowledge about the relationship between meat production and environment,is a hindrance to the reduction of meat consumption.With the climate change and meat consumption as the research background,the urban residents as the research obj ects and relying on the Norm Activation Model,three studies was launched in turn.First,in Study 1,the existence of the awareness gap was investigated between the respondents(N= 1104)as the premise of follow-up study.Then,Study 2 explored the effect of awareness of consequences of individuals on the behaviour intention to reduce meat consumption through a survey(N= 215)and an experiment(N= 176).Finally,on the basis of Study 2,Study 3 also combined questionnaire(N= 207)and experimental(N= 268)methods to probe the serial mediative effect of ascription of responsibility and personal norms between awareness of consequences and behaviour intention of citizens.The main results are as follows,(a)The negative impact of meat consumption on the environment is often underestimated or ignored.(b)By transmitting environmental information related to meat consumption to individuals,their awareness of consequences will be enhanced;(c)The effect of awareness of consequences on the individual's behaviour intention is mediated by ascription of responsibility and personal norms in sequence.The stronger the awareness is,the more likely the individual feels responsible for the adverse influence,and the more likely the personal norms will be activated,then he or she will be more willing to reduce meat consumption for countering climate change.The research not only verifies the applicability of Norm Activation Model in meat consumption behaviour study,but also provides guidance on climate change interventions.