An Integrative Model of Tourists’ Pro-Environmental Behavior Based on the Dual Path of Rational Planning and Embodied Emotion

Abstract

Tourists’ pro-environmental behavior is one of the key factors for the sustainable development of natural scenic spots. Although this behavior depends on the surroundings and context, the existing literature lacks the perspective of specific scenarios, especially that of embodied emotions. This research integrated the theory of planned behavior and embodied theory to construct an integrative model of pro-environmental behavior that combined tourists’ “rational planning” and “embodied emotion” and conducted an empirical study. The results show that in natural scenic spots, “rational planning” and “embodied emotion” affect tourists’ pro-environmental behavior simultaneously on dual paths, and factors such as behavioral attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, engagement with nature, and connectedness to nature have different effects on high- and low-effort pro-environmental behavioral intentions. The findings of the study provide a new explanatory perspective for individual pro-environmental behaviors and a basis for effectively predicting and guiding tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors in natural scenic spots.

Hikers’ pro-environmental behavior in national park: Integrating theory of planned behavior and norm activation theory

“…The following theoretical additions to the existing literature are illustrated by this investigation. Firstly, the study found that both the TPB and NAM models demonstrate significant explaining capacity on hikers' PEB in the protected areas, which further validates the findings of previous studies PEB (Han, 2015(Han, , 2021Alzubaidi et al, 2021;Aziz et al, 2021;Singh and Kaur, 2021;Cao et al, 2022;Kang, 2022;Long et al, 2022;Song et al, 2022;Zheng et al, 2022). Therefore, it is demonstrated that integrating TPB and NAM models is useful and effective for examining hikers' PEB in the protected areas and for understanding more fully the influence mechanism underlying such behavior.…”

“…First, the results revealed that both the TPB model and NAM model displayed explanatory capacity on hikers' PEB in Wuyishan National Park in China. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have regularly evaluated the suitability of utilizing TPB or NAM models to explain PEB (Han, 2015(Han, , 2021Alzubaidi et al, 2021;Aziz et al, 2021;Singh and Kaur, 2021;Cao et al, 2022;Kang, 2022;Long et al, 2022;Song et al, 2022;Zheng et al, 2022).…”

“…To achieve a more sustainable society, encouraging hikers to participate in a variety of PEB can subsequently increase favorable environmental outcomes and lessen the severity of global environmental challenges (Goh, 2020;Udall et al, 2020;Choi and Kim, 2021;Esfandiar et al, 2022). Previous studies about PEB have generally focused on personal factors regarding tourists, such as their attitude (ATT), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) mechanisms as well as the environmental behavioral intention of theory of planned behavior (TPB) (De Leeuw et al, 2015;Han, 2020;Meng et al, 2020;Yuriev et al, 2020;Alzubaidi et al, 2021;Aziz et al, 2021;Fenitra et al, 2021;Panwanitdumrong and Chen, 2021;Singh and Kaur, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021;Loureiro et al, 2022;Zheng et al, 2022); awareness of consequences (AC), ascription of responsibility (AR), and personal norm (PN) of the norm activation theory (NAM) (Meng et al, 2020;Alzaidi and Iyanna, 2021;Bai and Zhang, 2021;O'Connor and Assaker, 2021;Han et al, 2021;Cao et al, 2022;Jeon et al, 2022;Kang, 2022;Long et al, 2022;Loureiro et al, 2022;Song et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022). However, there are many influencing factors of personal PEB, and there are complex interrelationships, there are both have direct and indirect effects (Han, 2021).…”

Do destination personality and self-congruity matter for the pro-environmental behavioral intention? Nature-based pro-environmental behavior

“…Meanwhile, many studies show that psychological factors are greater contributors to the formation mechanisms of PEB than external factors (Gao et al, 2023;Li et al, 2019). In response, the role of emotion in PEB has been increasingly emphasized over recent years, with variables such as nostalgia (Le, 2020), connectedness to nature (Cao et al, 2022) and landscape perception and emotions (Salim et al, 2023) being successively included in the framework of PEB research. Moreover, Li et al (2019) proposed the need to pay attention to the deep analysis of the formation mechanism of PEB and introduce more specific psychological factors in the research model based on the limitations of the current study.…”

“…Tourists prefer to visit nature-based and rural destinations (Hardt & Glu ¨ckstad, 2024) and avoid urban tourist destinations (Huang et al, 2021). Promoting PEB among tourists minimizes the negative impacts of tourist growth on the natural environment, balancing economic development with natural environmental protection (Cao et al, 2022). As for tourism cities, sustainable destination management, including NBT destinations and destination branding, are also important tourism recovery strategies (Yang, Li, & Hern andez-Lara, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022).…”