Dissecting ocean-friendly behavioral intention among college students: Incorporating ocean literacy and diversified incentive mechanism with the theory of planned behavior

Promoting lifestyle change is considered a low-cost and effective solution to address the detrimental impacts of human activity on the ocean environment. However, the prevailing study may fall short of offering nuanced insights into how to encourage such change: empirical evidence on how to foster behavioral changes in the ocean environment context remains limited. To address this gap, this study takes the lead in proposing a model that integrates ocean literacy and two incentives with the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to dissect individuals' ocean-friendly behavioral intentions. The model is empirically validated through responses from 181 college students in three cities in China. The results of the multivariable analysis highlight that promoting ocean literacy is significantly and positively related to ocean-friendly behavioral inattention. In addition, the two incentives have demonstrated different influential mechanisms: for the high-attitude group, psychological recognition is more effective, whereas, for the low-attitude group, material rewards are most effective. These findings highlight that enhancing ocean literacy among college students is critical, while it is also necessary to provide diversified incentives relating to differences in attitudes to the ocean among individuals to promote behavioral change in more ocean-friendly forms.