Objective/Meaning  The study aimed to clarify the differentiated impact of government policy regulation and behavior regulation on the environmental participation behavior of residents, and to reveal the the moderating effect of environmental cognition, so as to provide the empirical basis for formulating the precise environmental governance policies.

Methods/Procedures  Based on CGSS 2018 data, the principal component analysis method was used to reduce the dimension of relevant variables. Then, the OLS model was used to explore the impact of government policy regulation and behavior regulation on the environmental participation behavior of residents, and to analyze the moderating effect of environmental cognition. Further, the robustness test was carried out by reducing the sample regression and increasing the control variable regression, and the endogenous problem was discussed by using the propensity score matching method.

Results/Conclusions  Both the government policy regulation and behavioral regulation significantly promoted the environmental participation behavior of residents, and the impact of behavioral regulation was stronger before the interaction of moderating variables were added. The environmental cognition had a positive moderating effect on both policy regulation and behavior regulation, and its moderating effect on policy regulation was greater than that on behavior regulation.