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 9 / 30 Guilt toward climate change. Guilt is a response to personal responsibility for wrongdoing when some social standard has been violated [89]. Individuals who feel guilty want to undo their actions; guilt typically elicits a pro-social response, characterized by repairing the harm caused by their wrongdoing. Moreover, eco-guilt refers to a negative emotional state that occurs when people perceive that they have failed to meet personal or social standards for environment-friendly behavior. Guilt can often act as a motivating factor to make significant changes in behavior to become more eco-friendly. Ferguson et al. [90] demonstrated that climate change-related behavior was facilitated when groups, including individuals, perceived responsibility for climate change and felt guilty about it. Wang [91] explored the determinants of climate change behavioral intention and found that self-efficacy, guilt, attitude, and consideration of future consequences predicted behavioral intention to mitigate global warming. In this study, we examine the role of climate change guilt in moderating the relationship between value and risk perception factors and the acceptance of the plastic tax. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 10. Guilt moderates the relationship between climate change values and risk perception paradigms and acceptance of the plastic tax. Self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is belief in one’s abilities [92] and refers to the satisfaction felt by an individual regarding their

role and actions related to their environment [65]. It is belief in one’s ability to organize and sustain the activities necessary to achieve a specific goal. Self-efficacy is associated with cognitive functioning through its impact on self-satisfaction with personal development and the demands of selected goals, and is one of the best predictors of environmental behavior [93]. Lee et al. [94] found that self-efficacy had a significant positive effect on eco-friendly behavior. Kim et al. [65] also confirmed that self-efficacy had a positive influence on environmentalism. Tabernero et al. [95] found that self-efficacy triggered the intrinsic motivation to practice self-regulatory environmental behaviors such as recycling. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of self-efficacy in climate change on the determinants of the support for the plastic tax. Hypothesis 11. Self-efficacy moderates the relationship between climate change values, risk perception paradigm, and acceptance of the plastic tax. Planned behavior factor as a moderator. In this study, we assumed that the three variables that comprise planned behavior play a moderating role in the relationship between value/risk perception and plastic tax. Logically, planned behavior is a powerful variable that can influence intentions and attitudes, as proven by prior studies [65,94,95]. Moreover, the moderating role of planned behavior factors such as attitude, norm, and efficacy has received increasing attention.

Yang et al. [96] showed that the effects of an interaction between attention to efficacy messages and that to threat messages on behavioral intention vary among people with different attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Norms influence a variety of climate change-related behaviors. Wang [91] showed that moral attitudes, self- efficacy, anticipated guilt, and consideration of future consequences predicted one’s intentions to engage in behaviors to alleviate global warming. Moghavvemi [97] demonstrated that feelings of guilt about contributing to air pollution and an awareness of the advantages of using LED lights both activate individual personal norms and attitudes and influence the intention to buy LED lights. This study adopts climate change skepticism as the attitudinal variable that constitutes the planned behavior. According to Chen [98], the moderating effect of climate change skepticism on the positive relationship between pro-environmental self-identity and purchase intentions of sustainable labeled coffee was verified. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is proposed. Hypothesis 11. Skepticism, guilt, and efficacy moderates the relationship between climate change values, risk perception paradigm, and the willingness to pay the plastic tax. Based on motivated reasoning theory, climate change skepticism should weaken the positive relationships between pro-environmental values and plastic tax support, as skeptics discount environmental information [24]. Research demon-

strates that skepticism attenuates the value-behavior link by reducing perceived policy necessity [17].