Environmental condition, cultural worldview, and environmental perceptions in China

Abstract Understanding public debates on environmental problems is critical for enhancing the effectiveness and social acceptance of environmental policies. This article aims to understand how factual environmental condition and culture influence the perceived severity of environmental problems in China. Relying on Cultural Theory and Cultural Cognitive Theory, we measure grid with an egalitarianism-hierarchy scale and group with an individualism–communitarianism scale. We use a large scale nationwide representative survey data——the Chinese General Social Survey——to identify Chinese political subcultures and find that environmental condition alone rarely play a role in Chinese environmental perceptions, and that as hypothesized, moving from egalitarianism to hierarchy, people perceive six of eight environmental problems to be less severe, whereas moving from individualism to communitarianism, people perceive five of eight environmental problems to be more severe. Meanwhile, the effect of environmental condition on the relationship between cultural worldview and perceived severity is very limited. This study has implications for environmental communication.