Social norms and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors: Do ethical evaluation and Chinese cultural values matter?

Abstract

Tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors are a prerequisite to the sustainability of tourist sites. Drawing from normative, ethical and cultural value perspective, this research aims to investigate the influences of social norms (e.g., injunctive norm and descriptive norm) on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. This study further explores the mechanism and the boundary condition of the effects by testing the mediating effect of ethical evaluation (e.g., deontological evaluation and teleological evaluation) and the moderating effect of Chinese cultural values (e.g., collectivism and human-to-nature orientation). The survey data collected from 537 tourists showed that injunctive norm and descriptive norm pose no significant direct influence on tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors but an indirect one via deontological evaluation and teleological evaluation. That is, ethical evaluation mediates the relationships between social norms and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. Moreover, this research revealed that collectivism and human-to-nature orientation positively moderate the relationships between social norms and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors.

Keywords:

• Social norms
• deontological evaluation
• teleological evaluation
• collectivism
• human-to-nature orientation
• pro-environmental behaviors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 71974177) and USTC Research Funds of the Double First-Class Initiative (Grant number YD2160002002).

Notes on contributors

Shanyong Wang

Dr. Shanyong Wang is an Associate Professor of University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include sustainable development, green consumption and green tourism management. He has published several articles in many high quality hospitality and tourism journals.

Jing Wang

Dr. Jing Wang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of University of Science and Technology of China. Her research interests include green tourism and tourism marketing.

Liang Wan

Dr. Liang Wan is an Associate Professor of University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include sustainable development and green innovation.

Hualong Wang

Dr. Hualong Wang is a Ph.D. candidate of University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests are in the areas of ecotourism and destination management.