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 15 / 30 values had a strong correlation with the acceptance of the plastic tax because these values refer to environmental pro- tection, nature preservation, and restoration to combat the environmental crisis. Understanding how much the planet is suffering is based on the altruistic value of caring about other living things. In this sense, altruistic values have a defining relationship with the support for the plastic tax. Conversely, materialism had a negative relationship with the acceptance of taxes, probably due to the focus on eco- nomic development and the satisfaction of needs, in contrast to post-materialist values based on self-actualization, which links to environmentalism, altruism, and egalitarianism. These findings suggest conflicts between altruistic, egalitarianism, post-materialistic values and egoism, individualism, and materialism regarding the plastic tax. When analyzing the support factors and risk perception paradigm, we found that perceived risk, knowledge, trust, and emotion were all positively related to support for taxes. In particular, support for taxes and perceived risk had the largest coefficient, followed by trust > emotion > knowledge. These results suggest that the risk of using plastic is a strong argu- ment in favor of the tax. When analyzing the support for taxes and environmental psychological factors, climate change skepticism was found to have a negative relationship with the acceptance of taxes, and guilt and efficacy had a positive relationship with the

support for taxes. In particular, the acceptance of taxes and efficacy (r = .390, p < .001) had the largest coefficient value, followed by guilt and climate change skepticism. These results suggest that individuals’ belief that they can do something about climate change is linked to tax. In reality, the presence of resources or individual abilities increases their sense of control over an object, thus driving relevant behavior. The variables that are associated with the support for taxes, the most were perceived risk > environmentalism > effi- cacy > trust, suggesting that an individual’s perceived risk of climate change is an important factor affecting policy-related tax (dis)agreement. Regression analysis Multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the factors associated with the acceptance of the plastic tax. Model 1 examined the relationship between independent variables and the support for the plastic tax without including the planned behavior factor, and Model 2 included variables in planned behavior, such as climate change skepticism, guilt, and efficacy (Table 3). The explanatory power of Model 1 was 34.2%, with a model fit of 64.373 (p < .001). The tolerance was greater than 0.1, and the VIF was less than 10, indicating no multicollinearity. The results of Model 1 showed that, in terms of sociodemographic factors, age and education variables were signifi- cantly associated with the support for the plastic tax. A higher age and education were likely to be associated with a higher

the support for the plastic tax because individuals in this group were more likely to experience the problems of climate change. They indicate the need to gain the sympathy of the young and less-educated groups because they have negative attitude toward raising taxes related to climate change in the future. Next, among the value factors, environmentalism, altruism, and egalitarianism were significantly positively associated with the acceptance of the plastic tax, while materialism was significantly negatively associated with the support for the plastic tax. In the risk perception paradigm, perceived risk, knowledge, trust, and emotion all contributed significantly positively to the acceptance of the plastic tax. Based on the standardized regression coefficients, the variables that are associated with the support for the plastic tax were perceived risk > trust > environmentalism > knowledge > altruism > mate- rialism > egalitarianism > emotion. Perceived risk had the strongest association with the support for the plastic tax, which means that the higher an individual’s perceived risk of climate change, the higher their support for the plastic tax. In other words, the higher the perceived risk, the more willing individuals are to pay their taxes to combat climate change. We also observed that in terms of perception, trust and knowledge were operationalized, while in terms of value, environmental- ism and altruism had a significant association with the support for the plastic tax. These results indicate that plastic tax