Qual Quant (2019) 53:449–469

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-018-0763-0

Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental

behavior? Empirical evidence from China General Social
Survey

Erda Wang1,2 · Nannan Kang1,2 

Published online: 12 May 2018

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract  A large body of literature has documented the effect of people’s environmental
behavior on their life satisfaction. However, no attention has been paid to a plausibly rever-
sal relation between the two, i.e., the effect of people’s life satisfaction on their environ-
mental behaviors. As a result, the commonly recognized empirical findings might impli-
cate some risks of biases and inaccuracy due to the present of the endogeneity complexity.
To fill in this gap, this paper attempts to investigate whether there exists a causal effect of
people’s life satisfaction on their pro-environmental behavior by utilizing an instrument
variable model. In the process, a two stages least squares model was utilized for parameter
estimation using a large dataset collected by China General Social Survey, and in mean-
while an unexpected length of sunshine hours was introduced as being an instrument varia-
ble. The results show that people’s life satisfaction indeed spurs their interest of participat-
ing in pro-environmental behavior. Consequently, an individual’s environmental concern
poses a prime influential mechanism for one’s life satisfaction, and in turn the level of peo-
ple’s satisfaction could exert a considerable influence to their environment behavior. Thus,
improving the life well-being for the general public may turn into a spontaneous instrument
in resolving the potential conflicts between economic growth and environment protection.

Keywords  Life satisfaction · Pro-environmental behavior · Environmental concern · IV

probit model

JEL Classification  D03 · D69 · Q56 · I32

* Nannan Kang
kangnan714@163.com
Erda Wang
edwang@dlut.edu.cn
1
Faculty of Management and Economics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
2
Present Address: School of Business Management, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 ,
Linggong Rd., Dalian, Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China

13
 450 E. Wang, N. Kang

Abbreviations
2SLS Two stages least squares
ULS Unexpected length of sunshine
ALS Actual length of sunshine
ELS Expected length of sunshine
LS Life satisfaction
IV Instrumental variable

1 Introduction

A large body of literature has documented the factors to be able to contribute to the indi-
vidual’s pro-environmental behaviors, including but not limited to personal traits, social
demographic elements such as age, gender, household income, education, ethical, and life
values, etc. just named a few (Davis 2012; Fielding and Head 2012; Leeuw et  al. 2015;
Meyer 2015; Robelia and Murphy 2012). Likewise, an individual behavior could also
being affected by his or her life satisfaction (Frey and Stutzer 2002). In this context, as
Kaida and Kaida (2016) indicated, a positive emotion can be more effective on motivating
people’s environmentally responsible behaviors.1 On the other hand, economists are more
keen in looking at how life satisfaction relates to one’s pro-environmental behavior (Binder
and Blankenberg 2016; Schmitt et al. 2018).
However, a flip side of the coin is that a pro-environmental behavior might be able to
spur people’s life satisfaction (Brown and Kasser 2005; Corral-Verdugo et al. 2011; Jacob
et al. 2009; Tapiafonllem et al. 2013). Thus, this plausibly reversely causal relation signi-
fies that an endogeneity problem could exist. In such a case, a conventionally used mod-
eling procedure might produce some biased estimating results. Thus, the following ques-
tions could be justifiable: Do changes in a self-reported life satisfaction lead to changes
in pro-environmental behavior? And if so, to what extent the endogeneity problem of life
satisfaction could be effectively dealt with in the modeling process? To tackle these and
other related issues, we use the weather change as an instrument variable to supersede the
life satisfaction factor and then to regress the life satisfaction on the pro-environmental
behavior. The rationality of doing so is warranted by the two preconditions: one is that a
high correlation exists between the endogeneous variable (life satisfaction) and the weather
condition; and the other is that the weather condition and people’s environmental behav-
ior are unrelated. Here, the fulfillment of these two preconditions was verified by using a
big dataset collected by China General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2010. A two stage least
squares regression model (2SLS) was used to examine whether or not there is an influential
mechanism for the self-reported life satisfaction.
The empirical findings of this study has a good potential to enrich the happiness eco-
nomics literature in terms of demonstrating whether there is an effect of people’s life sat-
isfaction on their environmental behavior. This mentality is quite different from previous
research work where most of efforts were focused on the concept, measurement methods,

1
 Pro-environmental behavior, environmental behavior, pro-ecological behavior, ecologically responsi-
ble behaviors and environmentally responsible behaviors are used interchangeably in this paper. Because
the different term above showed the unified connotation of environmental behavior, which is environmen-
tally responsible behaviors such as green consumption, natural protection and support for environmentally
friendly products (Schultz and Kaiser 2012; Steg and Vlek 2009).

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 451

factor identification, as well as psychological mechanism. A prominent thrust of this study

is embodied in how to deal with the endogeneity problem of being inherently existed in the
situation of bidirectional causality between life satisfaction and pro-environmental behav-
ior. Furthermore, we want to understand to what extent a rising people’s environmental
sensitivity for being considered as the main pathway for people’s life satisfaction affect
their environmental behavior. Last but not the least, this study takes the Chinese people as
our study object which may insinuate some unique implication as the Chinese society has
been experienced a tremendous transformation over the last four decades in terms of peo-
ple’s life satisfaction and environment evolution.
The remaining content of the paper is arranged as follows: Sect. 2 provides an overview
on related literatures; Sect. 3 offers a detailed illustration on the research design, including
data gathering, modeling framework and variable specifications; Sect. 4 presents analytical
results and discussion, following by Sect. 5 of conclusion.

2 Literature review

2.1 Emotion, life satisfaction and pro‑environmental behavior

The main challenge in understanding the connection between people’s happiness2 and their
behavior is to demystify those involved psychological and social factors and how do they
react each other. Numerous psychology experiments have demonstrated that the psycho-
logical factor such as emotion enables to play a key role for people’s act on taking pro-
environmental behavior (Vlek and Steg 2007). Through measuring a general ecological
behavior, Kaiser(1998) revealed that people’s positive emotions could affect various types
of their ecological behaviors. Specifically, a positive emotion, such as affinity to the envi-
ronment, tends to exhibit negative attitude toward the ecological damages, which could
lead people to lose incentive of participating in the environmental protection, resulting in
indifference and less sentiment to the integrity of the natural resources, thus contributing to
less environmentally responsible behaviors (Corral-Verdugo et al. 2009; Kals et al. 1999).
Based on the information synthesized from a total of 57 samples, Bamberg and Möser
(2007) conducted a meta-analysis and found that a person’s moral norm could be used as a
predictor for pro-environmental behavioral intention. Carter (2011) qualitatively analyzed
whether a positive emotion could be more effective in inspiring people’s environmentally
responsible behaviors. Along the same line, Oswald et al. (2015) disclosed the reasons why
people’s emotions are able to affect their behavior, which is primarily stemmed from the
variation of the ability of individual’s selection and innovation, their memory improvement
as well as improvement in their altruistic behavior.
As an integrate evaluation on people’s life quality, a person’s life well-being entails to
the judgment of his or her life satisfaction and one’s assessment of emotions(Kesebir and
Diener 2008; Pavot and Diener 1993). That is, emotions are closely related to life satisfac-
tion (Andrews and Withey 2012). In this sense, the life satisfaction can be regarded as a bal-
ance between one’s positive emotions and negative emotions(Diener et al. 1985). Inspired
by this development, the interest of the relationship between pro-environmental behavior

2
  As argued by Welsch (2007, 2009), one can uses happiness, life satisfaction and subjective well-being as
a proxy for the individual’s utility. Therefore, in this literature, as in the present paper, the three terms are
used interchangeably.

13
 452 E. Wang, N. Kang

and happiness has been growing in recent years. Using adolescents and adults survey data,
Brown and Kasser (2005) studied this proposition by examining factors which can con-
tribute to promote both subjective well-being (SWB) as well as ecologically responsible
behavior (ERB). It was discovered that the compatibility of SWB and ERB is attributed to
intrinsic values and mindfulness. Individuals with a higher SWB generally reported more
involvement of ERB. De Young (2000) examined a strategy such as basing on a particular
form of motivation so-called intrinsic satisfaction and see whether it would be able to pro-
mote environmentally responsible behavior. The result indicates that the intrinsic satisfac-
tion could be a predictor for the pro-environmental behavior. Similarly, Kaida and Kaida
(2016) reported structural relation between psychological states, pro-environmental behav-
ior, and people’s present and future subjective well-being. The path analysis results sug-
gested that an intrinsic satisfaction correlates to pro-environmental behavior, and in turns
the pro-environmental behavior could facilitate not only the present subjective well-being
but also be used for projecting subjective well-being in the future. However, it is interested
to note that the expected future subjective well-being is negatively related to the current
pro-environmental behavior.

2.2 Effects of pro‑environmental behavior on life satisfaction

Ever since the idea of “Easterlin Paradox” emerged in 1974, the underlying connection
between economic growth and subjective well-being has sparked a great deal of interest
in the academic research community3 (Easterlin 1974; Ferrer-I-Carbonell 2005; Oshio and
Kobayashi 2011). Since then a great number of literatures has documented the incoher-
ent relationship between people’s income and their life satisfaction (Easterlin 1974; Ferrer-
I-Carbonell 2005; Oshio and Kobayashi 2011). By virtue of the psychological research,
economists are more enamored to the factors which are able to make most important con-
tribution to one’s happiness. Apart from absolute or relative income levels(Dumludag et al.
2016; Li et al. 2014; Tran and Vu 2018), the social status a person has and the environmen-
tal quality he or she perceives also play very important role in determining one’s life satis-
faction (Dumludag et al. 2016; Li et al. 2014; Tran and Vu 2018). As a result, the life sat-
isfaction data has been increasingly used for environmental economic study in recent years
(Biedenweg et al. 2017; Welsch and Ferreira 2014; Welsch and Kühling 2009). A small but
burgeoning number of cross-sectional studies have attempted to answer an interesting but
empirical question: Does adopting a green lifestyle lead to changes in the level of people’s
life satisfaction?(Suárez-Varela et al. 2016)
In fact, both empirical studies and common observation have indicated that life sat-
isfaction is positively and significantly related to different types of pro-environmental
behaviors(Welsch and Kühling 2009). Although there are numerous concerns over the
environment pollution from both government agencies and the general public, at prac-
tice level, people have to learn how to use their restraints on environment consumption.
This could of course be against their personal desires, needs, and convenience, par-
ticularly so in the short run, thus discouraging people’s happiness (Brown and Kasser
2005). Eigner (2001) found that a better quality of life can facilitate people’s more

3
  In 2010, Easterlin published the results of a survey of Chinese life satisfaction (1990–2010) in the Pro-
ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), suggested that Chinese life satisfaction shows a
sharp decline in the last two decades, which presents a striking contrast to economic growth. Similarly, the
World Values Survey (WVS) displays Chinese residents’ happiness tends to decline in 1990–2005.

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 453

frequent environmental behaviors. Moreover, a life happier family was reported to con-
stantly engage in the practices of environmentally conscious consumption (Kasser and
Sheldon 2002). Along the similar line, Corral-Verdugo et al. (2011) modeled a higher-
order-construct of “sustainable behavior” including pro-ecological, altruistic, frugal
and equitable and they found that the combination of those actions might be able to
result in enhanced levels of life satisfaction. Jacob et al. (2009) also showed that a link
between ecological sustainable behavior and subjective well-being, which could be due
to the process of the spiritual practice and mindfulness meditation. As far as behavior
of specific population segments in a society, there seems no necessarily insurmount-
able conflict present between environmentally responsible lifestyle and life satisfaction
(Brown and Kasser 2005). Using life satisfaction as a proxy for experienced utility,
Welsch and Kühling (2009) found people are more satisfied when the environmentally-
friendly behaviors are evolved into a social norm in their societies. The results are
robust with the premise to controlling both socio-demographic characteristics and the
differences of the environment-related personal attitudes. Kasser (2017) reviewed the
data used to examine for the apparent compatibility of pro-ecological behaviors and
human well-being, which revealed that pursuing a green lifestyle could benefit for the
individual’s well-being. Binder and Blankenberg (2017) extended this research by ana-
lyzing household panel data in Great Britain, and concluded that boosting people’s life
satisfaction is mostly due to self-image (i.e. one’s own assessment of how environmen-
tally-friendly one’s behavior is).

2.3 Environmental concern and pro‑environmental behavior

When it comes to better understanding whether life satisfaction can lead to pro-environmental
behavior and what factors drive such a behavior, it makes sense for turning to the influence
mechanisms of life satisfaction on pro-environmental behavior.
Several studies discovered the evidence that the differences for the impact of emotions
on behavior might be attributed to the difference for the level of consciousness people
embrace to resources (Jung and Cho 2015; Wells et al. 2011). In general, people’s aware-
ness as well as their support on dealing with environmental issues are defined as environ-
mental concern (Dunlap and Jones 2002). Many researchers have suggested that environ-
mental concern can be regarded as a direct or indirect predictor of the pro-environmental
behavior (Oreg and Tally 2006; Tatic and Cinjarevic 2010; Urban and Ščasný 2012). For
example, Urban and Ščasný (2012) showed that people with a higher environmental con-
cern are more likely to perform energy-saving, introduce energy efficiency retrofits, be
more cautious to the efficiency of investment. Binder and Blankenberg (2016) found that
environmental concerns help to enhance the likelihood for people to do more volunteer-
ing activities and thus would be more likely becoming a member of an environmental
organization.
In this study, we attempt to tie together all previous research findings associated with
life satisfaction and environmental concerns in order to examine whether life satisfaction
can indeed improve individual environmental concerns, and in turns whether these con-
cerns can be translated into some actual environmental behaviors. This bidirectional effec-
tive mechanism can be better described by Fig. 1.

13
 454 E. Wang, N. Kang

Environmental
Concern

Pro-environmental
Life Satisfaction
Behavior

Fig. 1  Mediating effect of the environmental concern over the relationship between life satisfaction and
pro-environmental behavior

3 Data and empirical model

3.1 Data and variables

Data used in the estimation comes from two different sources. One is the individual-trait
data acquired from China General Social Survey,4 and the other is instrumental variable
data obtained from China statistical yearbooks and the governments’ work reports.
The CGSS is a longitudinal survey conducted by Renmin University of China starting
from 2003 and the same survey has been carried out in annual basis until 2010. The sur-
veys collected self-reported measures of the general public’s life satisfaction including the
data on individual household demographics. However, only the 2010 survey data was used
in our analysis because only in that year the survey started collecting data on measures
of individuals’ pro-environmental behavior, environmental concerns and environmental
awareness, etc. The survey included more than 12,000 households covering over 105 cities
in the mainland of China, of which 88 cities were chosen for the analysis after eliminating
those incomplete questionnaires.

3.1.1 Pro‑environmental behavior variable

As noted by Santos et al. (2011), we divided the assessment of individual pro-environmen-

tal behaviors into two categories: private and public. The former refers to the individual
behaviors, such as energy saving, and the latter involves actions such as signing a petition
or donating money for environmental activity. Each type of the behavior encompasses 3
items. Questions related to the private behavior entail:

• Have you saved or reused water for the purpose of protecting the environment?
• Have you refused to use products that potentially harm environment?
• Have you reduced the energy consumption such as decreased use of fuel for the sake of
air quality protection?

For each of these questions a respondent can give an answer of 0 to 3 where ‘0’ refers to
“never, ‘1’ sometimes, ‘2’ often, and ‘3’ always.

4
  For further information on the China General Social Survey, please refer to: http://www.china​gss.org/.

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 455

Table 1  Sample’s reliability and validity test results

Variable name Pro-environmen- Private environ- Public envi-
tal behavior mental behavior ronmental
behavior

Number of items 6 3 3
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient 0.780 0.803 0.838
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure 0.744 0.708 0.698
Bartlett’s test of sphericity Approx. Chi 8080.25 3295.37 4401.76
square
df. 15 3 3
Sig. 0.000 0.000 0.000

Questions related to the public behavior are phrased as follows5:

• I would be willing to pay high prices for products that I think more environmentally
friendly.
• I would be willing to pay higher environmental taxes.
• I would like to safeguard the environment at the sacrifice of a better living standard.

Each response is recoded as categories from 0 to 4 where ‘0’ refers to completely disa-
gree, ‘1’ disagree, ‘2’neither disagree nor agree, ‘3’ partial agree, and ‘4’ completely agree.
Based on the variable coding system used for private and public environmental behavior,
we firstly computed total score of the six items, then broke down the total scores into three
levels of being numbered as 0, 1, and 2 (0 = never, 1 = occasionally, 2 = always). Results for
both sample’s reliability and validity tests are presented in Table 1, which serves to analyze
the survey questionnaires’ internal consistency and stability.

3.1.2 Life satisfaction and other control variables

The life satisfaction variable was formulated from the survey responses to the ques-
tion: “Given overall consideration, how do you rank your life satisfaction from a scale of
1–5, where ‘1’ means minimum satisfaction, ‘5’ means most satisfaction and others fall
between”. Additionally, those demographic variables such as sex, age, square of the age,
religion, educational attainment, health, occupation, marital status, number of children,
and household income (Ln) are all treated as explanatory variables. In order to account
for the effect of socio economic factors on people’s life satisfaction and pro-environmental
behaviors, the city level’s economic inequality indicator was introduced to the model. By
referring to Tran et al. (2016)’s study, the Gini coefficient was developed6 to represent the

5
 The CGSS also covers various environmental behaviors in the public spheres. For instances, “Have
you signed a petition about environmental problems?” “Have you donated money to some environmental
groups?” “Have you taken part in the protests for a specific environmental problem?” However, each of
them failed to pass the reliability and validity tests. Therefore, they were not adopted in this analysis.
6
  It has been well-established in the literature that the household consumption expenditure is commonly
used to represent people’s living standard differences. Therefore, it has been commonly regard as a better
proxy for individual life satisfaction (Deaton 1997; Goodman and Oldfield 2004; Tran et al. 2018). In our
study, we used the household expenditure data in the city level and its measurement on how to develop the
Gini coefficient can be referred to Hu (2004).

13
 456 E. Wang, N. Kang

income inequality variable which was calculated using the household consumption expend-
iture data. The related descriptive statistics is presented in “Appendix”.

3.1.3 Instrumental variable

One of the primary challenges in this study is to locate a proper instrumental variable
which can best catch with the exogenous shock as well as be able to affect people’s pro-
environmental behavior via bypassing its effect on the level of self-reported satisfaction. In
general, sunshine, temperature, rainfall and the other natural factors have been commonly
considered to as being to reflect people’s perception toward the environmental conditions
and thus exerting effect on their life satisfaction (Ferrericarbonell and Praag 2004; Mad-
dison and Rehdanz 2011; Parker 1955). However, along with the rapid economic growth,
the extent of ecological destruction has been gradually edged down to the biosphere thresh-
old, making the forgone climate factors be increasingly less desirable. Using the data col-
lected from the three large-scale surveys in Germany, Kämpfer and Mutz (2013) exam-
ined the effect of the weather conditions on people’s self-reported life satisfaction. It was
found that the respondents surveyed on the days with exceptionally sunny weather condi-
tion reported a higher level of life satisfaction than those interviewed on the days with an
ordinary weather condition. Therefore, we choose “unexpected length of sunshine (ULS)
hours” as an instrumental variable and it is specified as the difference between the actual
length of sunshine (ALS) hours and the expected length of sunshine (ELS) hours. The ELS
is expressed as annual average sunshine hours recorded during 2004–2009 in China’s cit-
ies reported in the statistical yearbooks and the other related governments’ documents (see
“Appendix”).
To corroborate whether the ULS could be a qualified and yet a valid instrumental vari-
able, we conducted the first stage endogenous test using the Hausman test procedure which
generated statistically significant outcome (p = 0.005). Accordingly, we can reject the H ­0
hypothesis and accept H ­ A, i.e., the life satisfaction variable is indeed able to play an endog-
enous role to the pro-environmental behavior. Since there is only one instrumental factor,
the equation is‘exactly identified’. The value of F-statistic (F = 37.21) is much higher than
‘10’, implying that we can reject the possibility of a weak instrument condition (Tran and
Vu 2018). All the remaining statistical test results confirm there is a significant relationship
between the endogenous variable and the instrumental variable. In the process of exog-
enous test, the dependent variable of pro-environmental behavior is estimated as the func-
tion of both exogenous variables and instrumental variable. However, the ULS is not found
to have a significant effect on the pro-environmental behavior (z = 1.14, p = 0.254). The
results largely support the fact that the instrumental variable is exogenous.

3.2 Empirical model

Assuming that a reported pro-environmental behavior k of individual i in city s is an

ordered categorical variable, the utility function of an individual i can be formulated as
follows:
( )
Uisk = Visk Xis, Cs + 𝜀isk , k = 0, 1, 2 (1a)
( ) �
Visk Xis, Cs = 𝛽k Xis + 𝛾k Cs� (1b)
In a micro-econometric function, an individual’s true utility is unobservable. Utility
function (1a) is additively separable, whereas Visk is the deterministic part of the utility

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 457

function. Here, we can use self-reported life satisfaction as a proxy for the level of utility;
𝜀isk is the random part which is not readily observed. Xis is a vector of socio-demographic
characteristics including gender, age, education, marital status, employment status, etc.;
and Cs denotes regional control variables such as city location and economic inequality
indicators.
When facing a decision making for a pro-environmental behavior, individuals tend to go
through the process of calculating the balance between benefit and cost, aiming at obtain-
ing his or her maximum benefit. We will use an environmental behavior h as a control
variable which has never taken pro-environmental behavior. The probability of individual
i who chooses participating in the pro-environmental behavior can be expressed by Eq. (2)
below:
( )
Pr(Behaviror = k) = Pr Uisk ≥ Uish , k ≠ h = Pr(𝜀̃ ̃
iskh ≤ −Viskh , k ≠ h) (2)

where 𝜀̃iskh = 𝜀ish − 𝜀isk , Viskh = Vish − Visk.

̃
When the observed errors are accorded with a standard normal distribution, Eq.  (2)
turns out to be an ordered probit equation which can be estimated by a maximum likeli-
hood procedure. The probit model of residents’ behavior can be obtained from some latent
variable models. As such, based on the assumptions, the latent variable of Behavior* can
then be explained by Eq. (3):
Behavioris∗ = 𝛼is + 𝛽is LSis + 𝛾is Xis + 𝜂s Cs + 𝜉is (3)
where Xis is a vector of socio-demographic characteristics, Cs is regional control variables,
and 𝜉is represents the error term. In this model, individual reported frequency of pro-envi-
ronmental behavior is formulated as a scalar from 0 to 2, where ‘0’ stands for “never”,
‘1’for occasionally and ‘2’ for always. Based on the analysis of “latent variable data exten-
sion methods”, the following conditions exist:
Behavior = k ⇔ 𝜏k−1 < Behavior∗ ≤ 𝜏k k = 1, 2, 3 (4a)
−∞ ≡ 𝜏0 < 𝜏1 < 𝜏2 < 𝜏3 ≡ ∞ (4b)
where k represents the three types of discrete pro-environmental behavior (0–2),𝜏k stands
for the two estimated threshold values that differentiate the Type 1 from the others. The
measurable factors which affect the individual choices collectively are referred to 𝛤  , then
model (2) can be rewritten as Eq. (5):
( ) ( ) ( )
PrBehaviror = k = Pr 𝜏k−1 < Behavior* ≤ 𝜏k = 𝛷 𝜏k − 𝜂Γi − 𝛷 𝜏k−1 − 𝜂Γi
(5)
where 𝛷(⋅) is a cumulative normal distribution function.

3.3 IV probit model and two stages least square regression

As noted above, there exists a bidirectional causal relationship between individual’s pro-
environmental behavior and his or her level of life satisfaction. Furthermore, it could hap-
pen that the residual’s distribution in a regression model cannot be considered as com-
pletely independent of the regressor’s distribution. Therefore, a parameter estimation using
the ordered probit model could be biased and inconsistent. As noted by Hyll and Schneider
(2013), instrumental variables are needed to resolve this endogenous problem caused by

13
 458 E. Wang, N. Kang

the life happiness variable. Thus, here the IV probit model is used and estimated by a two
stages least squares method.
In the first stage, we use an ordinary least square (OLS) regression of life satisfaction
data that enables to yield both fit values of latent variable of life satisfaction and residual
errors.

�∗
LSis∗ = 𝜇0s + 𝜇1s Z⃗ + 𝜇2s Xis + 𝜇3s Cs + 𝜀is ⇒ LS (6)
is

̂∗ denotes the fit value of LS*, the column vector Xis

where Z⃗ is the instrumental variable, LS is
includes individual-demographic variables and Cs denotes regional variables.
In the second stage, behavior variable Behavior* is treated as a function of the predicted
self-reported life satisfaction to be estimated by model (6), which also involves residual
and other exogenous variables. Now, our final behavior model is established as Eq. (7).

̂∗ + 𝛾is Xis + 𝜂s Cs + 𝜉is

Behavioris∗ = 𝛼is + 𝛽is∗ LS (7)
is

The instrumental variable Z⃗ must meet the following two basic requirements: First, Z⃗ is
an excluded instrument. That is cov(Z,⃗ 𝜉is ) = 0 . Second, it must be significantly associated
⃗ LS) ≠ 0.
with life satisfaction, which is endogenous in the regression. That is cov(Z,

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Main regression results

The estimated model results are presented in Table 2. Let us first turn to the results gen-
erated by the ordered probit model, which are presented in column 2–3 in Table  2. As
expected, the regression results indicate that the higher level of life satisfaction is posi-
tively related to pro-environmental behavior since the coefficient is statistically significant.
It is also clear that the frequency of engaging in pro-environmental behavior is substan-
tively different between urban people and rural ones. For instance, the urban residents tend
to engage in more frequent pro-environmental behaviors. Perhaps, it is due to the fact that
the urban people might have experienced more environmental pollution than their counter-
parts in the rural area. Furthermore, urban people in general receive a better education than
rural people and a better educated person is relatively more sensitive to the environmental
quality than less education receivers (Wang 2007). That is why people live in the city area
are more interested in engaging in pro-environmental behavior. It is interesting to see that
the residents’ gender could impose some effects on their environmental behaviors, but it is
not statistically significant here, i.e., no marked difference being observed between male
and female in terms of their pro-environmental behaviors. This seems to be against the
mainstream viewpoint that believes females are more passionate to the surrounding natu-
ral environment than males (Steel 1996). Wang (2007) found that the limited access to
the professional knowledge of environmental education for women may negatively affect
their pro-environmental behaviors. As to age factor, we conclude that pro-environmental
behavior has an inverted U-shaped relation with the age in such a way that the enthusiasm
of involving pro-environmental behavior reaches a vertex as people age 49  years of old.
People who do not have a regular job tend to be more willing to engage in environmental
protection activities. This may be due to the fact that those people have more free time to
be involved with pro-environmental behavior activities. The same reason can be used to

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 459

Table 2  Life satisfaction and pro-environmental behavior

Ordered Probit IV Probit

1st stage 2nd stage

Coefficient S.E. Coefficient S.E. Coefficient S.E.

Life satisfaction 0.0535** 0.0235 0.5122*** 0.1963

ULS 0.0013*** 0.0002
Residence − 0.2666*** 0.0504 0.1254*** 0.0359 − 0.3247*** 0.0618
Sex 0.0375 0.0440 0.1097*** 0.0315 0.0212 0.0537
Age 0.0153** 0.0077 0.0041* 0.0055 0.0190** 0.0088
Age2 − 0.0002** 0.0001 − 0.0001** 0.0001 − 0.0002** 0.0001
Religion − 0.0587 0.0653 0.0707 0.0469 − 0.1326* 0.0748
Education 0.0466* 0.0292 0.0553*** 0.0209 0.0579* 0.0347
Health 0.0011 0.0214 0.1845*** 0.0150 − 0.0778* 0.0440
Occupation 0.0383* 0.0246 − 0.0139 0.0176 0.0653** 0.0284
Number of children − 0.0037 0.0216 0.0318** 0.0155 − 0.0292 0.0253
Marital − 0.0952** 0.0391 − 0.0931** 0.0278 − 0.0510 0.0471
Household income 0.0077 0.0251 0.1157*** 0.0180 − 0.0633 0.0364
Central region − 0.1135** 0.0570 − 0.1162*** 0.0439 − 0.0282* 0.0637
West region − 0.1860*** 0.0579 − 0.1427*** 0.0415 − 0.2162* 0.0693
Expenditure(ln) 0.4241*** 0.0645 0.3900*** 0.0438 0.2849 0.1092
Gini coefficient 0.1564 0.1397 − 0.1726* 0.1003 0.1022 0.1596
Number of observations 3439 3439 3439
LR chi2(12) 207.49
Prob > chi2 0.000 0.000
Pseudo ­R2 0.0383 0.1442
Log likelihood − 2608.4187

***Significant at 1% level; **significant at 5% level; *significant at 10% level

explain why residents who are unmarried tend to take part in more environmental activi-
ties. Another interesting phenomenon is that the level of income earned by a family does
not necessarily affect the frequency of its engagement in pro-environmental behaviors. One
possible explanation to this phenomenon is that the pro-environmental behavior we defined
in this study contains two aspects: one is public sphere and the other is private sphere.
This categorization may entail two different values and environmental preferences. Rela-
tive to those living in the Central and Western regions, residents living in the Eastern areas
are more willing to participate in pro-environmental behavior. In addition, people who
reside in cities with better living standards (measured by average expenditure per capita)
manifested more frequent pro-environmental behaviors. Wu et al. (2015) demonstrated that
most households in China show up motivation to reduce environmental pollution and pay
attention to improve their health condition through elevating their consumption expendi-
ture. However, according to our analysis, the economic inequality (measured by Gini coef-
ficient) does not appear to exert any significant effect on residents’ environmental behavior.
The columns 4–5 in Table 2 present the estimates from an OLS regression of life satis-
faction using the CGSS (i.e. the first stage of IV probit model). The results are similar to
those developed from the previous happiness literature. As such, the most demographic

13
 460 E. Wang, N. Kang

variables such as sex, age, education, health, marital status, number of children, and house-
hold income are significantly related to the life satisfaction. However, our results do not
seem to indicate there exists any connection between people’s religious faith and their life
satisfaction. This does not seem to be consistent with Tran et al. (2016)’s research finding,
which concluded some religious affiliations (e.g. Buddhists and Caodaists) are negatively
related to life satisfaction among old the people in Vietnam. The reason for our result could
be a simple proof because the religious belief is not very common in the traditional Chi-
nese culture. Thus, naturally, its effect on individual well-being could be unnoticeable at
the national level.7 However, along with more and more Chinese people develop their reli-
gious faith custom, our conclusion regarding the role of the religious faith on people’s life
satisfaction as well as environmental behavior has to take a cautious exercise and with a
dynamic. As for the regional variables, residents who live in the East are found to be hap-
pier than those who reside in the Central and the West. Moreover, a better living standard
seems to play a positive role in contributing to people’s life satisfaction. Nevertheless, une-
qual economic (measured by Gini coefficient) shows the opposite effect. The latter finding
is very much consistent with those developed by Knight et al.(2009) in China; Hajdu and
Hajdu (2014) in Europe, and Tran et al. (2016) in Vietnam.
Referring to the results generated by the second stage of IV probit model (columns 6–7
in Table 2), there is a sharp rise on the coefficient of life satisfaction variable (α < 0.01),
suggesting that the residents’ life satisfaction has a positive impact on their pro-environ-
mental behavior and the impact becomes stronger after the endogeneity problem is being
controlled. Moreover, contrary to the popular view that religious believers tend to exhibit
more pro-social behaviors (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012), our results show that the resi-
dents who have religious beliefs are less concerned on participating in pro-environmen-
tal behaviors. By controlling the endogeneity of life satisfaction variable, the influence
of work experience on pro-environmental behavior is slightly increased. By contrast, the
influence of marital status is not statistically significant.

4.2 Marginal effects of explanatory variables

Note that what all the estimated parameters presented in Table 2 can tell is just a causal
relation between dependent variable and independent variables to be manifested by their
coefficient signs and level of their statistical significance for each included explanatory
variable. To analyze the marginal effect of changing a specific explanatory variable on the
probability of individual’s pro-environmental behavior, marginal analysis must be exer-
cised. In this context, the marginal analysis is used to estimate for both the marginal contri-
butions of exogenous explanatory variables and endogenous explanatory variable, respec-
tively. Equation (8) is utilized in calculating the marginal effects of exogenous explanatory
variable:
𝜕Prob(k = 0Γ(r) ) ( )
= −𝜂𝜑 𝜏1 − 𝜂Γi
( 𝜕Γ )
𝜕Prob k = 1Γ(r) [ ( ) ( )]
= 𝜂 𝜑 𝜏1 − 𝜂Γi − 𝜑 𝜏2 − 𝜂Γi (8)
𝜕Γ
𝜕Prob(k = 2Γ(r) )
= 𝜂𝜑(𝜏2 − 𝜂Γi )
𝜕Γ

7
  According to Gebauer et al. (2012) only when religion has the mainstream value of society, the benefits
of religion for individual well-being become more pronounced.

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 461

Table 3  Marginal effects of explanatory variables on the pro-environmental behavior

Variable name Behavior = 0 Behavior = 1 Behavior = 2 Significance

Exogenous explanatory variables

Residence 0.0933 − 0.07554 − 0.0153 ***
Sex − 0.0138 0.0112 0.0022
Age − 0.0058 0.0047 0.0009 **
Age2 0.0001 − 0.0001 − 9.98E − 06 **
Religion 0.0232 − 0.0188 − 0.0038 *
Education − 0.0178 0.0144 0.0029 **
Health 0.0007 − 0.0005 − 0.0001
Occupation − 0.0112 0.0096 0.0019
Number of children 0.0005 − 0.0004 − 0.0001
Marital status 0.03409 − 0.0275 − 0.0056 **
Household income − 0.0024 0.0019 0.0003
Central region 0.0391 − 0.0316 − 0.0064 **
West region 0.0665 − 0.0538 − 0.0109 ***
Expenditure(ln) − 0.1597 0.1292 0.0263 ***
Gini coefficient − 0.0609 0.0493 0.01001
Endogenous explanatory variable: life satisfaction
life satisfaction = 1 0.0204 − 0.0420 − 0.0356 ***
life satisfaction = 2 − 0.0609 − 0.0097 − 0.0265 ***
life satisfaction = 3 − 0.0792 0.0946 0.0237 ***
life satisfaction = 4 − 0.0739 0.0991 0.0245 ***
life satisfaction = 5 − 0.0687 0.0796 0.0455 ***

***, **, and * are statistical significance at level of 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 respectively

where Γ(r) is an exogenous explanatory variable as shown in Eq. (3). The marginal effect
simply means a possibly probabilistic change of the residents’ pro-environmental behavior
as a result of the one level of the exogenous variable (or status) change. Results of the
marginal effect analysis are presented in Table 3. From the 5th column of the Table 3, it is
evident that each of the nine exogenous variables (Age, ­Age2, Religion, Education, Mari-
tal status, Residence, and three regional variables) imposes a statistically significant effect
on the changing probability of the pro-environmental behavior. For instance, the residents
who live in rural areas are 7.55 and 1.53% less likely of being engaged in pro-environmen-
tal behavior than those who live in urban areas under the category of “Occasionally” and
“Always,” respectively. As the education is raised up by one more level, the probability of
“Never” engaging in pro-environmental behavior is expected to decrease by 1.78%. On the
contrary, the probability of “Occasionally” and “Always” engaging in pro-environmental
behavior are expected to increase by 1.44 and 0.29%, respectively.
To get more accurate marginal effect analysis for the endogenous variable of life satis-
faction, we treat the LSis∗ variable as a continuous instead of a discrete (Lian et al. 2014). So
the Eq. (9) is used to estimate the marginal effect of people’s life satisfaction on their pro-
environmental behavior. The results are presented in Table 3.

13
 462 E. Wang, N. Kang

𝜕Prob(Behaviror = k) || ̂∗ ||
𝜕Prob(Behaviror = k)∕𝜕 LS is |
| = |
𝜕Prob(LS = j) |Γ=Γ ̂ ∗
𝜕Prob(LS = j)∕𝜕 LSis | (9)
|Γ=Γ
(k = 0, 1, 2 j = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

As all the other variables maintain at their mean values, when the probability of res-
idents’ life satisfaction at status of “very satisfaction”(LS = 5) rises by 1%,the probabil-
ity of “Never” participating in the environmental behavior (Behavior = 0) decreases by
0.0687%,the probability of “Occasionally”participating in the pro-environmental behav-
ior (Behavior = 1) surges by 0.0796%,and the probability of“Always” participating in the
environmental behavior (Behavior = 2) surges by 0.0455%. On the contrary, as the prob-
ability of residents’ life in a status of being very unhappy (LS = 1) increases by 1%,the
probability of those who are “Never” engaged in environmental behavior(Behavior = 0)
surges by 0.0204%,“Occasionally” engaged in environmental behavior (Behavior = 1), and
“Always” participating in the environmental behavior (Behavior = 2) decrease by 0.0420
and 0.0356%, respectively. From Table 3 we can see that the rising of the local resident’s
life satisfaction exerts a positive contribution to the probability of the residents to partici-
pate in environmental behaviors.

4.3 Analyzing the effects of environmental concern

There is a small, but burgeoning number of literature suggests that the environmental con-
cern has significant impact on people’s environmental behaviors such as green purchas-
ing and energy saving (De Young 2000; Guagnano et al. 1995; Tatic and Cinjarevic 2010;
Urban and Ščasný 2012). One of the propositions addressed in Sect. 2 claims that promot-
ing environmental concern may become an important influencing mechanism of life sat-
isfaction on pro-environmental behavior. Happier individuals who tend to have a positive
attitude toward their life satisfaction are relatively more sensitive to the change of their
environment surroundings, which in turns motivates their consciousness of environmen-
tal concern. Along this line, the environmental concern was often used as the dependent
variable in the pro-environmental behavior model. In the New Environmental Paradigm
(NEP) proposed by Dunlap and Van Liere (1978), they developed the scales for the 15
items used to measure individual level of environmental concern. To tune this scale to the
China’s situation, Hong et al. (2014) modified the NEP and transformed it into the Chinese
New Environmental Paradigm (CNEP) for fulfilling with China’s environmental study. As
a result, the CNEP has been widely accepted by Chinese research community for measur-
ing individual level of environmental concern. However, the original CGSS dataset was
accorded with the NEP’s framework. In order to comply with the CNEP framework pro-
posed by Hong et  al. (2014), we removed five items (No. 2, No. 4, No. 6, No. 12, and
No. 14) out of the CGSS dataset. Then, we aggregated the ranking scores (‘1’ stands for
completely disagree, ‘5’ for completely agree, and the other ranking numbers fall in the
between) of each item across over the entire 3439 sample observations. The items being
kept are listed in “Appendix”, Table 6.
Table 4 presents the ordered probit model results of testing the effect of life satisfaction
on environmental concern. It is shown that the self-reported satisfaction imposes a direct
statistically significant effect on the resident’s environmental concern (α = 0.05). However,
these estimated results could be potentially biased due to likely present of an inversely
causal relation between the residents’ environmental concern and their life satisfaction

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 463

Table 4  The effect of life satisfaction on the environmental concern

Ordered probit IV Probit

1st stage 2nd stage

Coefficient S.E. Coefficient S.E. Coefficient S.E.

Life satisfaction 0.0502** 0.0225 0.4299*** 0.1941

ULS 0.0013*** 0.0002
Residence − 0.2294*** 0.0481 0.1254*** 0.0359 − 0.3179*** 0.0608
Sex − 0.0020 0.0415 0.1097*** 0.0315 0.0141 0.0532
Age 0.0157** 0.0073 − 0.0041 0.0055 0.0191** 0.0087
Age2 − 0.0001** 0.0001 0.0001*** 0.0001 − 0.0002** 0.0001
Religion 0.0173 0.0616 0.0706 0.0469 − 0.0944 0.0739
Education 0.0701*** 0.0275 0.0553*** 0.0209 0.0910*** 0.0344
Health − 0.0081 0.0203 0.1845*** 0.0150 − 0.0640 0.0435
Occupation 0.0276 0.0231 − 0.0139 0.0176 0.0549* 0.0281
Number of children 0.0084 0.0205 0.0318** 0.0155 − 0.0203 0.0250
Marital status − 0.1502*** 0.0376 − 0.093*** 0.0278 − 0.7520** 0.0465
Household income 0.0281* 0.0239 0.1157*** 0.0180 − 0.0517 0.0360
Central Region − 0.1861*** 0.0545 0.1162*** 0.0439 − 0.0392 0.1080
West Region − 0.1780*** 0.0547 0.1428*** 0.0415 − 0.1994*** 0.0685
Expenditure(ln) 0.5102*** 0.0633 0.3900*** 0.0438 0.3145*** 0.9163
Gini coefficient 0.1152 0.1325 − 0.1726** 0.1003 0.0270 0.1575
Number of observations 3439 3439 3439
LR chi2(16) 310.56
Prob > chi2 0.000 0.000
Pseudo ­R2 0.0435 0.1442
Log likelihood − 3416.85

***, **, and * denote level of statistical significance at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively

(Kaida and Kaida 2016).8 To correct this problem, the ULS variable is put to use as of
being an instrument for a personal life satisfaction again and then the IV probit model is
re-estimated. In the ­1st stage, the life satisfaction is estimated as the function of ULS plus
some personal covariates. Since the F-statistic (37.20) is higher than 10, we can reject the
possibility of a weak instrument. The results of the 2nd stage regression model (columns
6 and 7) show that the coefficient of the life satisfaction increases dramatically (α = 0.01).
Yet, the happy people are more concerned over the environment, and thus they are more
willing to protect the environment. Therefore, the environmental concern can be regarded
as an important channel, and through which people’s life happiness is able to play a critical
role in facilitating their pro-environmental behaviors. As to other socio-economic factors,
most of them exhibit a significant effect on people’s environmental concerns, including
age, education, occupation, marital status and residential location, etc. Similar to the effect
on pro-environmental behavior, we also find a significant relationship between regional
economic variables and environmental concerns.

8
  Binder and Blankenberg (2016) found that egoistic concerns have a negative impact on subjective well-
being while altruistic concerns are positively associated with people’s happiness.

13
 464 E. Wang, N. Kang

5 Conclusion

The potential of the two ways of interaction between life satisfaction and environmen-
tal behavior complicates the analytical procedure as a result of the endogeneity problem.
Thus, if this is not carefully addressed, it could bring about some seriously biased mod-
eling results. To properly address this problem, we propose a two stage least square model
with combined use of the instrument variable in this study. The empirical analysis is based
on the data gathered by China General Social Survey in 2010. The unexpected length of
sunshine hours is utilized as an instrument for the life satisfaction variable in the IV pro-
bit model analysis. The results indicate that people’s perception on their life satisfaction
has an important role in affecting the likelihood of their participation in pro-environmental
behavior, such as saving water, spare energy consumption, and willing to pay higher prices
for environmentally friendly products, etc. For example, as the residents who perceive their
life satisfaction of being ‘very satisfaction’ category is enhanced by one higher level, the
probability of those under the category of “Never participating” in environmental activity
will decrease by 6.87 percentage point; However, for those under the categories of being
“Occasionally” and “Always” involved with environmental behavior will surge by 7.96 and
4.55 percentage point, respectively. Furthermore, enhancement of the residents’ life satis-
faction can play a role in facilitating their environmental concerns. Thus, environmental
concern could be considered a prime mechanism of people’s perception toward life satis-
faction that in turns dominates their pro-environmental behaviors.
Due to the fact that rising residents’ life satisfaction enables to facilitate people’s envi-
ronmental behavior, the future governments’ environmental policies should pay more atten-
tion to the role the general public could play in solving with the environmental challenges.
Second, the corroborated relationship between the situation of regional income distribution
and pro-environmental behavior may suggest the governments better make differentiated
environmental regulations instead of homogeneous ones. On the one hand, a strict pollu-
tion control policy should be enforced in those metropolitan areas such as Beijing, Shang-
hai and Shenzhen, i.e., those so-called the first-tier city areas in China since the people’s
living standards in those areas are much higher than those who live in the rest areas of the
country. On the other hand, more lenient environmental regulations should perhaps come
into a play for those less economic advantage areas including most of the western and
northeast provinces and autonomous regions. We believe that the aforementioned policy
suggestions might pertain to China and also many other nations across over the world very
well due to the prevailed uneven economic development conditions between the regions
within the country and among the countries across over the globe.

Acknowledgements  This research was funded by the National Nature Science Foundation of China [N0.
71640035].

Compliance with ethical standards 

Conflict of interest  The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Appendix

See Tables 5 and 6.

13
 Table 5  Variable definition and descriptive statistic
Variable name Definition Maximum Minimum Mean Standard deviation

Dependant variable
Pro-environmental behavior Never = 0; occasionally = 1; always = 2 2 0 0.675 0.527
Independent variable
Life satisfaction Completely dissatisfied = 1; dissatisfied = 2; neither satisfied nor dissatisfied = 3; satis- 5 1 3.719 0.938
fied = 4; completely satisfied = 5
Residence Living in city = 1; living in country = 2 2 1 1.359 0.480
Sex Female = 1; male = 2 2 1 1.521 0.499
Age Age of respondent in 2010 91 17 47.045 15.722
Age2 Age of respondent in 2010 squared 8281 289 2460.358 1559.441
Religion Nullifidian = 1; adherent = 2 2 1 1.118 0.323
Education Illiterate = 1; highest level of education is junior high school or lower = 2; highest level 5 1 2.434 0.923
of education is junior high school senior high school = 3; highest level of education
is bachelor = 4;highest level of education is master or higher = 5
Health Very unhealthy = 1; unhealthy = 2; neither healthy nor un healthy = 3; healthy = 4; 5 1 3.649 1.094
healthy = 5
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?…

Occupation Non-agricultural = 1; agricultural = 2;unemployed(occasionally) = 3; unemployed 4 1 2.024 0.976

(always) = 4
Number of children Number of children in household 11 0 1.745 0.976
Marital status Spinsterhood = 1; married = 2; divorce = 3; bereft of one’s spouse = 4 4 1 2.067 0.639
Household income Nature log of disposable household income 14.914 6.214 10.154 0.985
Central region Dummy variable = 1 if living in the Central, otherwise = 0 1 0 0.296 0.457
West region Dummy variable = 1 if living in the West, otherwise = 0 1 0 0.215 0.411
Expenditure(ln) Log of per capital expenditure at the city level 10.035 7.096 9.472 0.393
Gini coefficient Gini coefficient 0.855 0.110 0.428 0.164
Instrumental variable
ULS Unexpected length of sunshine times of city respondent lived (unit: h) 228.257 − 271.742 − 26.686 109.800
Number of observations 3439
465

13
 466

13
Table 6  Chinese new environmental paradigm
Items Description

Environmental concern_01
Environmental concern_03
Environmental concern_05
Environmental concern_07
Environmental concern_08
Environmental concern_09
Environmental concern_10
Environmental concern_11
Environmental concern_13
Environmental concern_15
Number of items
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure
Bartlett’s test of sphericity
We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support
When humans interfere with nature it often produces disastrous consequences
Humans are severely abusing the environment
Plants and animals have as much right as humans to exist
The balance of nature is strong enough to cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations
Despite our special abilities humans are still subject to the laws of nature
The so-called “ecological crisis” facing humankind has been greatly exaggerated
The earth is like a spaceship with very limited room and resources
The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset
If things continue on their present course, we will soon experience a major ecological catastrophe
10
0.786
0.874
Approx. Chi Square 6124.284
df 45
Sig. 0.0000
E. Wang, N. Kang
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 467

References
Andrews, F.M., Withey, S.B.: Social Indicators of Well-Being: Perceptions of Life Quality. Springer,
NewYork (2012)
Bamberg, S., Möser, G.: Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: a new meta-analysis of
psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. J. Environ. Psychol. 27, 14–25 (2007).
https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp​.2006.12.002
Biedenweg, K., Scott, R.P., Scott, T.A.: How does engaging with nature relate to life satisfaction? Dem-
onstrating the link between environment-specific social experiences and life satisfaction. J. Envi-
ron. Psychol. 23, 113–124 (2017)
Binder, M., Blankenberg, A.K.: Environmental concerns, volunteering and subjective well-being: ante-
cedents and outcomes of environmental activism in Germany. Ecol. Econ. 124, 1–16 (2016). https​
://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecole​con.2016.01.009
Binder, M., Blankenberg, A.K.: Green lifestyles and subjective well-being: more about self-image than
actual behavior? J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 137, 304–323 (2017)
Brown, K.W., Kasser, T.: Are psychological and ecological well-being compatible? The role of values,
mindfulness, and lifestyle. Soc. Indic. Res. 74, 349–368 (2005). https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1120​
5-004-8207-8
Carter, D.M.: Recognizing the role of positive emotions in fostering environmentally responsible behav-
iors. Ecopsychology 3, 65–69 (2011)
Corral-Verdugo, V., Bonnes, M., Tapia-Fonllem, C., Fraijo-Sing, B., Frías-Armenta, M., Carrus, G.:
Correlates of pro-sustainability orientation: the affinity towards diversity ☆. J. Environ. Psychol.
29, 34–43 (2009). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp​.2008.09.001
Corral-Verdugo, V., Mireles-Acosta, J., Tapia, C., Fraijo-Sing, B.: Happiness as correlate of sustainable
behavior: a study of pro-ecological, frugal, equitable and altruistic actions that promote subjective
wellbeing. Hum. Ecol. Rev. 18, 95–104 (2011)
Davis, J.: Perceived environmental threats as a factor in reproductive behavior: an examination of Amer-
ican youth. Evol. Hum. Behav. 33, 647–656 (2012)
De Young, R.: New ways to promote proenvironmental behavior: expanding and evaluating motives
for environmentally responsible behavior. J. Soc. Issues. 56, 509–526 (2000). https​://doi.
org/10.1111/0022-4537.00181​
Deaton, A.: The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1997)
Diener, E., Emmons, R., Larsen, R., Griffin, S.: The satisfaction with life scale. J. Pers. Assess. 49, 71
(1985)
Dumludag, D., Gokdemir, O., Giray, S.: Income comparison, collectivism and life satisfaction in Turkey.
Qual. Quant. 50, 955–980 (2016). https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1113​5-015-0185-1
Dunlap, R.E., Jones, R.: Environmental Concern: Conceptual and Measurement Issues. Greenwood,
London (2002)
Dunlap, R.E., Van Liere, K.D.: The new environmental paradigm. J. Environ. Educ. 9, 3–10 (1978)
Easterlin, R.A.: Does economic growth improve the human lot? Some empirical evidence. In: Nations &
Households in Economic Growth, pp. 89–125. Academic Press, New York (1974)
Eigner, S.: The relationship between—protecting the environment as a dominant life goal and subjective
well-being. income: life goals and well-being. Towards a Positive Psychology of Human Striving.
Hogrefe and Huber, Seattle, WA, pp. 182–201 (2001)
Ferrer-I-Carbonell, A.: Income and well-being: an empirical analysis of the comparison income effect. J.
Public Econ. 89, 997–1019 (2005). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpube​co.2004.06.003
Ferrericarbonell, A., Praag, B.M.S.V.: Happiness quantified: a satisfaction calculus approach. Oup Cat.
96, 289–293 (2004)
Fielding, K.S., Head, B.W.: Determinants of young Australians’ environmental actions: the role of
responsibility attributions, locus of control, knowledge and attitudes. Environ. Educ. Res. 18, 171–
186 (2012)
Frey, B.S., Stutzer, A.: What can economists learn from happiness research? J. Econ. Lit. 40, 402–435
(2002)
Gebauer, J.E., Sedikides, C., Neberich, W.: Religiosity, social self-esteem, and psychological adjustment: on
the cross-cultural specificity of the psychological benefits of religiosity. Psychol. Sci. 23, 158 (2012)
Gervais, W.M., Norenzayan, A.: Reminders of secular authority reduce believers’ distrust of atheists. Psy-
chol. Sci. 23, 483–491 (2012)
Goodman, A., Oldfield, Z.: Permanent differences? Income and expenditure inequality in the 1990  s and
2000s. IFS Reports, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London (2004)

13
 468 E. Wang, N. Kang

Guagnano, G.A., Stern, P.C., Dietz, T.: Influences on attitude-behavior relationships: a natural experiment
with curbside recycling. Environ. Behav. 27, 699–718 (1995)
Hajdu, T., Hajdu, G.: Reduction of income inequality and subjective well-being in Europe. Economics 35,
1–29 (2014)
Hong, D.Y., Fan, Y.C., Xiao, C.Y.: Re-examining the measurement quality of the Chinese New Environ-
mental Paradigm (CNEP) scale: an analysis based on the CGSS 2010 data. Sociol. Stud. 4, 49–72
(2014)
Hu, Z.G.: A study of the best theoretical value of Gini coefficient and its concise calculation formula. Econ.
Res. J. 9, 60–69 (2004)
Hyll, W., Schneider, L.: The causal effect of watching TV on material aspirations: evidence from the “valley
of the innocent”. J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 86, 37–51 (2013). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.030
Jacob, J., Jovic, E., Brinkerhoff, M.B.: Personal and planetary well-being: mindfulness meditation, pro-
environmental behavior and personal quality of life in a survey from the social justice and ecologi-
cal sustainability movement. Soc. Indic. Res. 93, 275–294 (2009). https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1120​
5-008-9308-6
Jung, J.W., Cho, S.Y.: The relationship among adolescents’ environmental experience, environmental con-
sciousness and pro-environmental consumption behavior. J. Environ. Sci. Int. 24, 329–337 (2015)
Kaida, N., Kaida, K.: Pro-environmental behavior correlates with present and future subjective well-being.
Environ. Dev. Sustain. 18, 1–17 (2016)
Kaiser, F.G.: A general measure of ecological behavior. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 28, 395–422 (1998). https​://
doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb017​12.x
Kals, E., Schumacher, D., Montada, L.: Emotional affinity toward nature as a motivational basis to protect
nature. Environ. Behav. 31, 178–202 (1999)
Kämpfer, S., Mutz, M.: On the sunny side of life: sunshine effects on life satisfaction. Soc. Indic. Res. 110,
579–595 (2013). https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1120​5-011-9945-z
Kasser, T.: Living both well and sustainably: a review of the literature, with some reflections on future
research, interventions and policy. Philos. Trans. Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 375, 20160369 (2017)
Kasser, T., Sheldon, K.M.: What makes for a merry Christmas? J. Happiness Stud. 3, 313–329 (2002)
Kesebir, P., Diener, E.: In pursuit of happiness: empirical answers to philosophical questions. Perspect. Psy-
chol. Sci. 3, 117–125 (2008). https​://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2350-6_3
Knight, J., Song, L., Gunatilaka, R.: Subjective well-being and its determinants in rural China. China Econ.
Rev. 20, 635–649 (2009)
Leeuw, A.D., Valois, P., Ajzen, I., Schmidt, P.: Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs
underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: implications for educational interven-
tions. J. Environ. Psychol. 42, 128–138 (2015). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp​.2015.03.005
Li, Z., Folmer, H., Xue, J.: To what extent does air pollution affect happiness? The case of the Jinchuan min-
ing area. China. Ecol. Econ. 99, 88–99 (2014). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecole​con.2013.12.014
Lian, Y.J., Li, W.S., Huang, B.H.: The impact of children migration on the health and life satisfaction of par-
ents left behind. China Econ. Q. 10, 185–202 (2014). https​://doi.org/10.13821​/j.cnki.ceq.2015.01.011
Maddison, D., Rehdanz, K.: The impact of climate on life satisfaction. Ecol. Econ. 70, 2437–2445 (2011).
https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecole​con.2011.07.027
Meyer, A.: Does education increase pro-environmental behavior? Evidence from Europe. Ecol. Econ. 116,
108–121 (2015)
Oreg, S., Tally, K.-G.: Predicting proenvironmental behavior cross-nationally: values, the theory of
planned behavior, and value-belief-norm theory. Environ. Behav. 38, 462–483 (2006). https​://doi.
org/10.1177/00139​16505​28601​2
Oshio, T., Kobayashi, M.: Area-level income inequality and individual happiness: evidence from Japan. J.
Happiness Stud. 12, 633–649 (2011). https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1090​2-010-9220-z
Oswald, A.J., Proto, E., Sgroi, D.: Happiness and productivity. J. Labor Econ. 33, 789–822 (2015)
Parker, P.M.: Climatic Effects on Individual, Social, and Economic Behavior: A Physioeconomic Review of
Research Across Disciplines. Greenwood Press, Westport (1955)
Pavot, W., Diener, E.: Review of the satisfaction with life scale. Psychol. Assess. 5, 164–172 (1993). https​://
doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2354-4_5
Robelia, B., Murphy, T.: What do people know about key environmental issues? A review of environmental
knowledge surveys. Environ. Educ. Res. 18, 299–321 (2012)
Santos, J., Herranz, M., Fernández, M., Vaquero, C., López, P., Fernández-Piqueras, J.: Global activism and
nationally driven recycling: the influence of world society and national contexts on public and private
environmental behavior. Int. Sociol. 26, 315–345 (2011). https​://doi.org/10.1177/02685​80910​39225​8
Schmitt, M.T., Aknin, L., Axsen, J., Shwom, R.L.: Unpacking the relationships between pro-environmental
behavior, life satisfaction, and perceived ecological threat. Ecol. Econ. 143, 130–140 (2018)

13
Does life satisfaction matter for pro‑environmental behavior?… 469

Schultz, P.W., Kaiser, F.G.: Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior. Oxford University Press, Oxford
(2012)
Steel, B.S.: Thinking globally and acting locally?: Environmental attitudes, behaviour and activism. J. Envi-
ron. Manag. 47, 27–36 (1996)
Steg, L., Vlek, C.: Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: an integrative review and research agenda. J.
Environ. Psychol. 29, 309–317 (2009). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp​.2008.10.004
Suárez-Varela, M., Guardiola, J., González-Gómez, F.: Do pro-environmental behaviors and awareness
contribute to improve subjective well-being? Appl. Res. Qual. Life. 11, 429–444 (2016). https​://doi.
org/10.1007/s1148​2-014-9372-9
Tapiafonllem, C., Corralverdugo, V., Fraijosing, B., Durónramos, M.F.: Assessing sustainable behavior and
its correlates: a measure of pro-ecological, frugal, altruistic and equitable actions. Sustainability 5,
711–723 (2013). https​://doi.org/10.3390/su502​0711
Tatić, K., Činjarević, M.: Releationship between concern and green purchasing behavior. Interdiscip.
Manag. Res. 6, 801–810 (2010)
Tran, T., Nguyen, C., Vu, H.: Does economic inequality affect the quality of life of older people in rural
Vietnam? J. Happiness Stud. 19(3), 781–799 (2018)
Tran, T.Q., Nguyen, T.Q., Vu, H.V., Doan, T.T.: Religiosity and subjective well-being among old people:
evidence from a transitional country. Appl. Res. Qual. Life. 12(4), 947–962 (2016)
Tran, T.Q., Vu, H.V.: A microeconometric analysis of housing and life satisfaction among the Vietnamese
elderly. Qual. Quant. 52, 849–867 (2018)
Urban, J., Ščasný, M.: Exploring domestic energy-saving: the role of environmental concern and back-
ground variables. Energy Policy. 47, 69–80 (2012). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol​.2012.04.018
Vlek, C., Steg, L.: Human behavior and environmental sustainability: problems, driving forces, and research
topics. J. Soc. Issues. 63, 1–19 (2007). https​://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2007.00493​.x
Wang, F.: A Study on Influencing Factors and Mechanism of Public Environmental Behavior. Northwest
University, Xi’an (2007)
Wells, V.K., Ponting, C.A., Peattie, K.: Behaviour and climate change: consumer perceptions of responsibil-
ity. J. Mark. Manag. 27, 808–833 (2011)
Welsch, H.: Environmental welfare analysis: a life satisfaction approach. Ecol. Econ. 62, 544–551 (2007).
https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecole​con.2006.07.017
Welsch, H.: Implications of happiness research for environmental economics. Ecol. Econ. 68, 2735–2742
(2009). https​://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecole​con.2009.06.003
Welsch, H., Ferreira, S.: Environment, well-being, and experienced preference. Int. Rev. Environ. Resour. 7,
205–239 (2014)
Welsch, H., Kühling, J.: Using happiness data for environmental valuation: issues and applications. Econ.
Surv. 23, 385–406 (2009). https​://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2008.00566​.x
Wu, K.P., Tong, J., Chu, C.J.: Impact of environment quality on people’s happiness. Technol. Econ. 34,
98–105 (2015)

13