Abstract

Understanding and managing University student’s environmental and sustainable behavior is critical to reducing global environmental problems and influencing pro-environmental behaviors. Survey data obtained from University students in different cities in the United States (n = 75) and Chinese Students in Jiangsu Province, China (n = 109) were investigated and analyzed to identify major predictors of pro-environmental behaviors using the Comprehensive Action Determination Model. The results confirmed multiple factors such as Social norms, Intention to Act, Information Need and Situational factors significantly influence and shape the nature of pro-environmental behavior in the US and sets of Social norms, Intention to act, Environmental awareness, Information need and Situational factor in China. These findings are in consonance with the tenets of theory of planned behavior, norm activation theory; though the loading and effects differ in their local environment. University students in US showed higher level of pro-environmental behavior despite their individualistic society compared to Chinese students in China. The findings confirms the complexity of human behavior through the robustness of the comprehensive action determination model by showing that using unitary construct to predict environmental behavior is context specific and using different combinations of predictor variables exert significant influences in different local environments.

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