Title

Understanding the effect of information sources on college students’ recycling/reuse behavior towards clothing and textile products

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2021

Abstract

This study investigated how college students’ exposure to recycling/reuse information through various sources, such as education, media, and interpersonal communication sources, affects their subjective norms, recycling/reuse attitude, intention and behavior. A self-administered online survey was conducted to ask questions about exposure frequency to recycling/reuse information sources, subjective norms, attitude, intention, and behavior based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). The final sample consisted of 725 participants from MTurk. Structural equation modeling was used to test six hypotheses. The results showed that obtaining recycling/reuse information through media sources led college students to have a positive attitude, positively affecting their recycling/reuse intention and behavior, whereas the information obtained from college education sources positively influenced their intention and behavior via inducing either positive subjective norms or positive subjective norms and subsequently attitude. Interpersonal communication sources were neither effective in developing positive subjective norms nor recycling/reuse attitude. Significant findings may provide important insights into how educators, environmental agencies, and brand managers can more effectively manage information sources to promote college students’ recycling and reuse attitude, intention, and behavior.

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