With the rapid development in new media and social platforms on the internet, some social hotspots or sensitive events can easily ferment and spread in the online space, attracting the attention or concentrated discussion of young students. Network cluster behavior is a collective behavior in which a large number of netizens collectively express and gather opinions around social hot issues of common concern, creating online public opinion. The study explored the influence of group psychology on the process of college students participating in online cluster behavior. A survey was conducted involving 2137 college students from over 10 universities in Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province, and other regions. The data were analyzed using correlation analysis and moderated mediation model testing. This study found that group psychological factors, such as emotional infection, depersonalization, the spiral of silence, relative deprivation, group polarization, and action mobilization, positively predicted network cluster behavior. The action mobilization of opinion leaders mediated the relationship between emotional infection and network cluster behavior. Group polarization mediated the relationship between the spiral of silence and network cluster behavior. Additionally, group efficacy moderated the latter part of the mediation process between group polarization and network cluster behavior.

A survey was conducted involving 2,137 university students from over 10 universities in Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province, and other regions. The data were analyzed using correlation analysis and moderated mediation model testing. This study found that group psychological factors, such as emotional infection, depersonalization, the spiral of silence, relative deprivation, group polarization, and action mobilization, positively predicted network cluster behavior. The action mobilization of opinion leaders mediated the relationship between emotional infection and network cluster behavior. Group polarization mediated the relationship between the spiral of silence and network cluster behavior. Additionally, group efficacy moderated the latter part of the mediation process between group polarization and network cluster behavior.

Given the increasingly prominent environmental issues that adversely affect global sustainable development, this study, grounded in situated cognition theory and social cognition theory, constructs a moderated serial mediation model to investigate the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which environmental education influences higher education students’ ecological behavior. Based on a survey and analysis of 3961 higher education students, the findings reveal that (1) theoretical education and practical education exert significantly different pathways to ecological behavior, with practical education demonstrating a significant positive direct behavioral driving force, whereas the direct effect of theoretical education is not significant and operates mainly through indirect psychological transmission; (2) ecological values and ecological cognition serve as serial mediators between environmental education and ecological behavior; (3) the degree of theory-practice transformation positively moderates the relationship between practical education and ecological cognition, while ecological action competence positively moderates the relationship between ecological cognition and ecological behavior. The results indicate that while strengthening students’ environmental education, universities should also focus on cultivating their ecological action competence—the key competence that transforms ecological cognition into actual behavior—and strive to enhance the teaching effectiveness of transforming theoretical education into practical experience.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 2137 college students from more than 10 colleges and universities in Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province. The data were analyzed by correlation analysis and moderated mediation model test. The results showed that group psychology such as emotional infection, depersonalization, silent spiral, relative deprivation, group polarization and action mobilization can positively predict network cluster behavior; The action mobilization of opinion leaders plays a mediating effect between emotional infection and network cluster behavior; Group polarization plays a mediating effect between the silent spiral and network cluster behavior; Group efficacy plays a regulatory role in the latter half of the intermediary process of group polarization affecting network cluster behavior.