Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Ambient air pollution, manifested as a local environmental hazard, has become a global challenge. About half of the world urban population lives in places where air quality is at least 2.5 times higher than the World Health Organization guidance level. Air pollution has become the world’s largest environmental health risk responsible for millions of deaths every year. The public are both sources and victims of air pollution. Stimulating behavioral change to reduce risks posed by polluted air is an important supplement to the current efforts of regulating emission sources. From a social-psychological perspective, this paper studies people’s adaptation and mitigation behaviors in response to air pollution and the driving factors behind them, with a questionnaire survey administered among Beijing residents. With a quota sampling strategy, an effective sample of 993 respondents was obtained. The predictors for the adaptation behaviors are consistent with the basic constructs for explaining health protective behaviors in the field of public health service, which are perceived risk, cost and benefit. This provides evidence for the appropriateness of borrowing knowledge in the public health service domain to cope with problems in the environmental domain. The predictors for the mitigation behavior of reducing car use confirm the two crucial factors influencing people’s cooperative behaviors under social dilemma situation, which are understanding the nature of the dilemma and belief in other’s cooperative behaviors. This implies that besides other policies, shaping social norms for encouraging car use reduction is an endeavour worthy of undertaking.