Are climate change perceptions related with plastic policy support? Effects of climate change skepticism, guilt, and efficacy on the acceptance of the plastic tax

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0337327 December 29, 2025 13 / 30 significant (t = 2.134, p = 1.44). In terms of age, a positive attitude toward the plastic tax was higher among those aged 40 and older than those in their 20s and 30s, and the level of favorability increases with increasing age from 40 to 60 (f = 19.616, p = .000). This may reflect the fact that older people are more likely to have experienced the damaging effects of plastic. This may also be due to their financial ability to pay the plastic tax. Regarding education level, respondents with a high school diploma or higher were more likely to be in favor of the plastic tax than those with a high school diploma or less (t = 2.797, p = 0.095). This is the result of increased knowledge about plastic through education. Regarding income, the support for a tax is higher in the higher income group (f = 4.371, p = 0.013), probably due to the shared monetary nature of tax and income. A bivariate correlation analysis was conducted between risk perception, value, and environmental psychological factors regarding the acceptance of the plastic tax (Table 2). Pearson’s correlation coefficient has a value range from −1–1. As there is no absolute criterion to indicate whether the correlation between variables is large or small, this study considered the absolute value of 0.5 or more to represent a high correlation between variables. The results showed that perceived risk and emotion had correlation coefficients of 0.5 or higher (r = .571, p < .001).

When analyzing the support for taxes and value factors, we found that environmentalism, altruism, and egalitarianism are positively related to support for taxes, and materialism was negatively related to support for taxes. In particular, sup- port for taxes had the highest correlation with environmentalism, followed by altruism and egalitarianism. Environmental Fig 1. Frequency of support for the plastic tax. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0337327.g001 Fig 2. Frequency of support for the plastic tax. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0337327.g002