1. Introduction
Cities are dense carriers of population, politics, economy, culture, and religion. They are unique ecosystems where human activities are highly compounded with the natural environment [
1,
2]. Urban ecosystems are open, dependent, and fragile, easily disturbed and damaged by human activities, which causes an imbalance in urban ecosystems [
3,
4,
5]. With accelerated urbanization and industrialization, the rapid development of urban society and economy has resulted in a series of resource and environmental problems, especially air pollution, urban flooding, and the heat island effect, which have recently posed serious threats to human production and life [
6,
7,
8]. The increasing deterioration of the urban ecological environment has led to a growing recognition of the importance of green space in promoting urban ecosystem health, optimizing its structure, and improving urban ecosystem function [
9,
10,
11]. Urban green spaces (UGS) are important components of an urban ecosystem and can be considered an environmental resource [
12,
13]. Through transpiration, evapotranspiration, absorption, adsorption, and reflection, UGS can reduce temperature, increase humidity, sequester carbon and release oxygen, purify air, reduce noise, and protect biodiversity [
10,
14,
15,
16,
17]. Generally, UGS play a significant role in improving urban microclimate, promoting the development of human health, and maintaining ecosystem stability [
18,
19,
20]. Therefore, promoting the conservation and rational use of UGS is of great significance and has received increasing attention from academia and policymakers.
Recently, many studies have examined UGS conservation; however, most have focused on cost-benefit analysis [
21,
22], willingness-to-pay analysis [
8,
23], or other forms of UGS economic valuation [
12], not performing in-depth explorations of how urban residents, who are the subjects of UGS use and conservation, perceive their relationship with UGS and influence the implementation of pro-environmental behaviors. However, a utilitarian perspective makes it difficult to thoroughly explore and understand the complex relationship between humans and nature [
24]. Human behavior significantly influences the effectiveness of ecological conservation; therefore, research should be conducted on how to improve society’s perceptions of the relationship between humans and UGS, establish conservation goals, and stimulate the formation of personal norms for spontaneous conservation. The first thing needed to establish conservation goals for UGS is exploring the relationship between value orientations, beliefs, and behavior about UGS conservation [
25,
26,
27].
Value orientations are the guiding principles that influence the attitudes and behaviors of individuals or groups, which are the basis for establishing other forms of human cognition (i.e., orientations, attitudes, norms, intentions, and behaviors) [
28,
29]. For environmental conservation, attitudes and behaviors toward nature conservation are driven more by values than by socio-demographic factors [
30,
31,
32]. The term “values” here does not represent the monetary value that nature is assigned by human society, but rather refers to people’s perceptions, feelings, meaning, or beliefs related to nature, natural resources, and nature conservation. Thus, the value orientations of people on the environment allow for an in-depth exploration of their different perspectives on how to live in harmony with nature and manage it effectively, thus, more effectively promoting conservation behavior [
33,
34,
35].
Personal norms are seen as a powerful incentive for pro-environmental intentions and behaviors. Personal norms refer to a sense of moral obligation and self-expectation to do the “right thing” (e.g., reduce timber harvesting to protect the planet) [
36,
37]. Numerous scholars have studied the influence of values, beliefs, and personal norms on individual behavior in different contexts [
28,
38,
39,
40]. However, as mentioned earlier, the role of human values in promoting the implementation of pro-environmental behaviors by urban residents and the generation of moral obligations for environmental protection by individuals in the context of UGS conservation remains largely unknown. Therefore, recognizing the importance of value orientations and beliefs in conservation, we must examine the relationship between value orientations and UGS conservation to provide scientific guidance and theoretical support for the implementation of UGS conservation programs. With this in mind, we investigated the influence that UGS value orientations (UGSVOs) and beliefs have on a person’s ability to form personal norms for UGS conservation behavior. Specifically, we explored the following questions: (1) do intrinsic, instrumental, and relational UGSVOs contribute to personal norms for UGS conservation? (2) Does a personal awareness of the consequences and ascription of responsibility for UGS (environmental beliefs) contribute positively to personal norms for UGS conservation? (3) How do UGSVOs and beliefs influence personal norms?
2. Theoretical Background
Our study is based on the integration of two theoretical frameworks: (1) the value-belief-norm theory of environmental behavior (VBN) [
41] and (2) the norm activation model (NAM) [
42] (
Figure 1). The VBN theory aims to explain what makes people decide to engage in behavior that is beneficial to environmental conservation [
43]. This model assumes a causal chain in which value orientations influence the behavior of individuals through specific beliefs and personal norms, and it assumes that Each factor in the causal chain not only affects the next factor in the chain but may even have an impact on other factors [
41]. NAM theory posits that Personal norms are the expression of a people’s recognition of the moral obligation to perform a particular behavior, and personal norms determine whether an individual performs a certain behavior [
44]. Furthermore, personal norms are influenced by the awareness of the consequences of an activity, and the ascription of responsibility. Awareness of consequences refers to an individual’s perception of the potential negative consequences of a situation in which they fail to perform a specific behavior. Ascription of responsibility refers to an individual’s sense of responsibility for conducting a specific behavior [
42]. In the context of conservation behavior and pro-environmentalism, the convergence of these theories can delineate a theoretical structure and research paradigms that measure the influence of value orientations on nature conservation. This study does not address specific behaviors regarding UGS conservation, but rather focuses on the ethical feelings associated with personal norms.
Numerous studies have confirmed the proposed causal cognitive chain based on VBN and NAM. For example, Wensing et al. [
45] found that pro-environmental values, beliefs, and norms motivate farmers to become more eager and active in bioeconomy activities. Fornara et al. [
46] found that ethical norms and biosphere values have a direct influence on nature/biodiversity actions; social norms also show an indirect influence on actions through other dimensions. Wynveen et al. [
47] found that responsibility beliefs influence personal norms and willingness to adopt environmental behaviors that conserve the ocean. Groot and Steg [
34] also showed that value orientations and beliefs influence individuals’ ethics norms and the subsequent acceptance of clean energy policies [
34].
Environmental value orientations are based on human perceptions of the value of nature, of which intrinsic, instrumental, and relational value orientations are the three categories widely discussed and recognized by academia [
48,
49,
50,
51]. Intrinsic value is the one that nature itself possesses, that is, nature has values that are not dependent on any human experience or evaluation, such as the good cycles that ecosystems themselves are supposed to maintain [
52]. In contrast, instrumental value is assigned to something to achieve a specific goal; it is the value generated by the environment to satisfy human needs and preferences, natural resources that provide people with jobs and sources of food [
51,
53]. However, few people make personal choices based only on how things are intrinsically valuable or satisfy their preferences; people also consider the appropriateness of their relationships with nature and others, including decisions and behaviors that are consistent with social value constraints and conducive to a meaningful and fulfilling life [
54,
55]. Environmental relational value orientations reflect preferences, principles, and virtues associated with relationships both interpersonal and as articulated by policies and social norms, for example, people’s care for the natural environment and the reverence for nature in traditional culture [
48]. Environmental relational value orientations are expressed specifically in terms of concern and care for the environment [
56]. Accordingly, this study assessed people’s intrinsic, instrumental, and relational value orientations toward UGS and investigated how these values influence a person’s awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility (i.e., beliefs), and personal norms. We proposed the following hypotheses (
Figure 2):
Intrinsic UGSVO has a significant positive effect on awareness of consequences (H1), ascription of responsibility (H2), personal norms (H3);
Instrumental UGSVO has a significant positive effect on awareness of consequences (H4), ascription of responsibility (H5), personal norms (H6);
Relational UGSVO has a significant positive effect on awareness of consequences (H7), ascription of responsibility (H8), personal norms (H9);
Awareness of consequences has a significant positive effect on ascription of responsibility (H10), personal norms (H11);
Ascription of responsibility has a significant positive effect on personal norms (H12).
5. Discussion
This study provided empirical evidence for the VBN and NAM theories in terms of UGS conservation. The findings showed the positive contribution of environmental value orientations and environmental beliefs to the formation of a moral obligation to conserve UGS. Among them, the causal chain of awareness of consequence—ascription of responsibility—personal norms operated clearly, confirming the applicability of the VBN and NAM in UGS conservation. In future UGS management, emphasis should be placed on enhancing stakeholder awareness of the negative consequences of UGS damage and the positive impacts of UGS conservation. This will strengthen stakeholders’ ascription of responsibility for UGS and thus promote the formation of personal norms for pro-environmental behavior. For a more in-depth analysis, ascription of responsibility mediated the relationship between awareness of consequences and personal norms. Thus, if the goal of policy implementation is to raise awareness of consequences before focusing on beliefs concerning responsibility, it may have a greater effect because people must first be aware of the activities affecting the UGS to take responsibility for it.
For the environmental value orientations, although not all of the UGSVOs had a significant direct effect on awareness of consequence, ascription of responsibility, and personal norms, our analysis of the mediating effects showed that all UGSVOs had a significant positive effect on personal norms through the mediating effect of environmental beliefs. In previous environmental management strategies, the focus on environmental value orientations has often been expressed as a dualism: conservation for the sake of nature (for intrinsic value) and use for the sake of humans (for instrumental value) [
50,
80]. Intrinsic value is immaterial, and intrinsic value orientation represents a human belief that nature should exist for its own benefit [
52], which leads to nature-centered value judgments [
81]. Therefore, intrinsic value orientation is often thought to support nature conservation practices [
82]. This was confirmed again in our study. The results of this study revealed that intrinsic UGSVO had a direct effect on awareness of consequence while indirectly influencing personal norms by bridging awareness of consequence and ascription of responsibility.
In contrast, an instrumental value orientation is the one in which humans believe that nature should be used to satisfy human needs or to achieve predetermined ends [
52]. This value orientation is egoistical and its base is human-centered [
83]. This value orientation has been criticized for its tendency to commodify natural resources: conflicting evidence and opinions exist with respect to whether it can contribute to the formation of conservation behavior [
83,
84]. This study provided evidence for the positive effect of instrumental value orientation on nature conservation. Similar to the intrinsic UGSVO, instrumental UGSVO did not have a significant direct effect on personal norms, but it directly influenced the ascription of responsibility for members of society. It thus exerted a significant positive indirect effect on personal norms through the ascription of responsibility as a mediator. Overall, we found that both the intrinsic and instrumental UGSVOs must be mediated by environmental beliefs to influence personal norms, which highlights the important role of environmental beliefs as a “bridge” to overcome the gap between one’s recognition of environmental values and their initiatives to conserve the environment.
This study showed that relational UGSVO strongly predicted ascriptions of responsibility and awareness of consequences while directly influencing personal norms. Based on the total effect scores, we observed that the relational UGSVO had the highest scores for awareness of consequence, ascription of responsibility, and personal norms. This suggests that while environmental conservation requires the affirmation of nature’s intrinsic values, people’s relational values can play a greater role in terms of promoting the formation of moral obligations for environmental conservation among members of society. This is because the perception of the appropriateness of one’s relationship with the environment and with other environment users also influences human conservation choices. Thus, relational value orientation embodies social altruistic values [
56]. In this study, people cared about the current and future status of UGS; the relational UGSVO had a greater influence on one’s ethical norms toward UGS. In the context of environmental protection, care and concern are expressed in the interconnectedness between society and ecosystems, reflecting a nurturing relationship [
56]. However, current UGS management and governance rarely consider the relationship between people and UGS. Therefore, empathizing with people’s concern for UGS can facilitate their conservation.
6. Conclusions
Effective UGS conservation requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of the environmental value orientations and environmental beliefs of society to promote the formation of pro-environmental personal norms for urban residents. Based on the VBN and NAM theories, this study demonstrated that environmental value orientations and beliefs contribute positively to the formation of pro-environmental personal norms using PLS-SEM. Among them, relational UGSVO had a more direct and stronger positive influence than intrinsic and instrumental UGSVOs. We used a pluralist approach to examine the influence of human values. In contrast to a unidimensional approach using a single scale (e.g., willingness to pay or monetary value) to measure human values, we analyzed the value orientations people hold about UGS conservation based on different perspectives. We obtained novel insights on how value orientations shape the environmental beliefs and personal norms. In future UGS management policy formulation, policy resolution departments should develop policies that fit the local environmental value structure to suit local conditions, taking into account the views and values held by local people about the UGS. In the governance of urban residential behavior, the role of different value orientations should be emphasized, especially to stimulate people’s care and concern for UGS, as well as their awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility, and guide them to develop ethical norms that actively protect UGS and motivate them to follow pro-environmental behaviors.
The limitations of the study should be noted. This study found how relational values can enhance one’s moral obligation to conserve UGS. However, studies on relational value orientation remain limited, only the relational value of “care and concern” was included in this study. Other relational values, such as traditional faith-based relationships, among others, were not explored here. However, we should highlight that these values may also influence personal UGS protection behavior. Further research should assess the impact of additional relational value orientations on personal norms.