Joyful Interaction, Responsible Behavior: The Role of Interpersonal Interaction in Triggering Tourists’ Pro-Environmental Behavior

This study draws on stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory to examine how interpersonal interaction influences tourists’ pro-environmental behavior. Using survey data from 412 mainland Chinese residents with recent domestic travel experience, we test a model linking tourist-to-tourist interaction and emotional solidarity to destination attachment, destination psychological ownership, and pro-environmental behavior. The results show that tourism information sharing, emotional closeness, and feeling welcomed significantly enhance destination attachment, whereas self-disclosure and sympathetic understanding do not exert significant effects. In turn, destination attachment positively predicts destination psychological ownership, which further promotes tourists’ pro-environmental behavior. These findings extend the antecedents of pro-environmental behavior by highlighting the role of social exchange processes in tourism settings and by clarifying the sequential link between attachment and psychological ownership. The study also enriches SOR theory by demonstrating that interpersonal interaction can serve as an important social stimulus that shapes tourists’ internal psychological states and environmentally responsible responses. Practical implications are offered for governments, tourism bureaus, destination management organizations, tourism service providers, destination residents, and tourists who seek to encourage pro-environmental behavior.