Explaining Rural people Environmental Behavior Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior: A Case from West Provinces of Iran

Rural sustainable development will be obtained through sound exploitation of environmental resources with an appropriate theoretical emphasis with protection and improvement of them for next generations. Rural people behavior has important role in quality of these resources. This study was designed to develop a model of rural people environmental behavior. This study implemented in the West provinces of the Iran tried to explain the rural people environmental behavioral based on theory of planned behavior (TPB). The main instrument of this descriptive research was questionnaire. Statistical population of this study was consisted of 642,029 households. Appling Cochran formula a sample consisted of 310 households were surveyed. Face validity of questionnaire was approved by faculty members of University of Tehran agricultural extension and education department, and reliability of which was approved by computing Cronbach's Alpha. Results showed that perceived behavioral control and social norms have the most influence in shaping environmental attitudes. Social norms and environmental attitudes respectively had the highest impact on intention of rural people for their environmental behavior. Furthermore, perceived behavioral control, social norms and environmental attitudes and environmental intention respectively had the highest effect on the rural people environmental behavioral.