Environmental knowledge gap: The discrepancy between perceptual and actual impact of pro‐environmental behaviors among university students

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Maryam Tofighi,Tye W. Jackson
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2426

ACADEMIC PAPER

Environmental knowledge gap: The discrepancy between

perceptual and actual impact of pro-environmental behaviors

among university students

Maryam Tofighi | Tye W. Jackson

College of Business and Economics, California

State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles,

California

Correspondence

Maryam Tofighi, College of Business and

Economics, California State University Los

Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

Email: mtofigh@calstatela.edu

This empirical research investigates the discrepancy between the environmental atti-

tudes and actual impact of pro-environmental behaviors. Survey results of 280 under-

graduate students, from a large public university in the United States, show that

there is a knowledge gap between the perceived environmental impact and actual

impact on high-impact and low-impact pro-environmental behaviors. However, this

discrepancy between the perceived and actual impact tends to be smaller in other

resource-related perceptions (i.e., perceived difficulty, effort, and time and money).

Some demographic and socioeconomic factors (i.e., gender, income, household size,

and ethnicity) show significant effects on the individuals' attitudes toward environ-

mental actions.

1|INTRODUCTION

“Making informed pro-environmental choices is diffi-

cult if one has incorrect or no knowledge.”Robelia and

Murphy (2012)

The global average temperature in 2018 was 0.98C above the

levels of 1850–1900 (BBC, 2018). Despite the modest goal of the

2015 Paris climate change agreement on limiting the global warming

temperature to below 2C, only a few countries (seven countries in

2018) were meeting the Paris climate goals (Erickson, 2018). None-

theless, the global macro-level climate change regulations and policies

seem arbitrary if it is due to neglecting the significant share of the

change at the micro-level by individual pro-environmental behaviors

(PEBs) (Bhattacharyya, 2016; Reid, Sutton, & Hunter, 2010). PEB is

defined as individual actions that mitigate the negative impact on the

environment and contribute to environmental sustainability (Mesmer-

Magnus, Glew, & Viswesvaran, 2012).

Wynes and Nicholas (2017) conducted meta-analysis research by

studying148 scenarios from 39 sources in 10 countries. Their findings

ranked nine individual-level PEBs based on each action's actual carbon

emission. On this list (Figure 1), living car-free and avoiding one trans-

atlantic flight are categorized as the high-impact emissions saving

actions (> 0.8 tCO

2

Emission). In contrast, recycling and hang-drying

laundry are categorized as moderate-impact actions (0.2–0.8 tCO

2

Emission). While some of the listed pro-environmental actions seem

reasonably highly impactful (e.g., living car-free as number one action

on the list), most of these actions seem distant from common knowl-

edge or practice (e.g., recycling as one of the lowest carb-emission

saving actions). This counterintuitive CO

2

emission ranking raises the

important question of whether there is a significant discrepancy

between how individuals perceive the impact of the PEBs and the

actual impact that these individual actions impose on the environ-

ment. Furthermore, it is important to identify those PEBs that are per-

ceived more (or less) impactful than they are. To address this

important question, this research empirically investigates the potential

gap between individuals' perceived and actual impact of high-impact

and moderate-impact PEBs. Moreover, some potential underlying fac-

tors such as perceived difficulty, effort, and needed time and money

are examined (Blake, 1999; Griskevicius, Tybur, & Van den

Bergh, 2010; Schmitt, Aknin, Axsen, & Shwom, 2018; Tobler,

Visschers, & Siegrist, 2012).

Therefore, this study seeks to address the following questions:

(a) Is there a discrepancy between perceived impact and actual impact

of nine individual-level PEBs (Figure 1), (b) What is the relationship

between individuals' perceived difficulty, needed effort, and needed

time and money with these nine PEBs, and (c) What is the role of

demographic and socioeconomic factors (gender, income, household

Received: 22 January 2020 Revised: 3 July 2020 Accepted: 20 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2426

J Public Affairs. 2022;22:e2426. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1of16

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2426

size, ethnicity) on the perceived impact, difficulty, needed effort, and

needed time and money of these PEBs.

In this research, we focus on undergraduate students from a large

public university in the United States. Evaluating undergraduate stu-

dents' environmental knowledge is crucial in addressing the environ-

mental knowledge-behaviors gap because the majority of college

students are new adults. They are carrying the environmental educa-

tions received during primary and secondary schools over to perform

actual PEBs as they move out of their homes or start living at univer-

sity dorms or residential houses (Boyes & Stanisstreet, 1993;

Schreiner, Henriksen, & Hansen, 2005). In the current research, nearly

79% of freshmen and 59% of senior students work full-time or part-

time (NSSE: National Survey of Student Engagement, 2017). Further-

more, previous research has conclusively shown environmental educa-

tion at the university level is essential in incorporating and

institutionalizing the sustainability issues (Waas, Verbruggen, &

Wright, 2010; Zilahy & Huisingh, 2009; Zsóka, Szerényi, Széchy, &

Kocsis, 2013) because of the great role university students have in

influencing the earlier and next generations to face tomorrow's

challenges.

2|CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

2.1 |Environmental knowledge gap

A large and growing body of environmental education literature has

investigated the differential effects of individual-level (i.e., internal)

and macro-level (i.e., external) factors influencing environmental

knowledge and PEBs. Table 1summarizes the relevant past research

highlighting each study's type of sample (students or adult partici-

pants), internal factors (individual-level factors such as age, gender,

education, values, attitudes, felt responsibility etc.), external factors

(macro/contextual level factors such as social, political, cultural fac-

tors), and PEBs type.

A careful examination of these summaries reveals that past res-

earch's main focus has been on either overall PEBs in general term or

PEBs in specific domains of private and/or public spheres. While gen-

eral PEBs are generally examined through the extent to which individ-

uals care about environment (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002), private

(public) sphere PEBs refer to the extent to which individuals take indi-

vidual (macro)-level actions to protect the environment (Liobikienė&

Poškus, 2019). For example, while a willingness to pay for environ-

mental protection is considered a general measure for PEB, recycling

and voting for environmental legislation are considered private and

public sphere PEBs, respectively. Although extant literature shows

that it is imperative to investigate influential factors affecting environ-

mental knowledge, which in turn affect, PEBs, there has been little

investigation on the perceived effectiveness of different types of

PEBs at the individual level (i.e., based on reduced CO

2

emissions).

This research tries to fill this gap in the literature by examining the

perceived effectiveness of different private-sphere PEBs and its rela-

tionship to individual-level factors such as perceived difficulty, effort,

and time and money. The next subsections provide more details on

the PEBs and the relevant factors.

2.2 |High- and moderate-impact private-

sphere PEBs

In a recent meta-analysis study, Wynes and Nicholas (2017) analyzed

148 scenarios of the climate impact of individual behaviors in 10 coun-

tries by mainly focusing on three developed regions with high

per-capita carbon dioxide emissions: Australia (average per-capita

emissions of 16.3 tCO

2

per year), Canada (13.5 tCO

2

per year), and

the United States (16.4 tCO

2

per year), as well as a lower-emission

region, the European Union (6.7 tCO

2

per year).

Their findings (Figure 1) suggest two sets of high-impact and

moderate-impact PEBs. High-impact behaviors highlight the actions

that reduce more than 0.8 tCO

2

emission and mainly focuses on the

FIGURE 1 Comparison of the

emission savings of pro-environmental

behaviors

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