The effect of psychological factors and ecotourism on residents’ ecological behavior in national park in China

Abstract

For ecological security, China is actively promoting the national park system pilot. The residents are important stakeholders in the ecological protection of national parks, and their ecological behavior is affected by the internal psychological factors as well as the external way of livelihood. At present, there are few studies on the ecological behavior of Chinese national park residents. The study attempted to expand the socio-psychological behavior model i.e. Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), including new structure ecotourism which combining ecological protection and personal well-being. Taking Shennongjia National Park as an example, 253 questionnaires gathered from the residents were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Results showed that the residents’ three psychological factors (altitude towards behavior (p = 0.283, p<0.001), subjective norm (p = 0.177, p<0.01), and perceived behavioral control (β = 0.195, p<0.01)) positively and significantly influenced their ecological intention: their ecological intention (β = 0.322, p<0.001) further impacted their behavior, and attitude towards behavior was proved to be the main key factor influencing the residents' ecological intention. Moreover, ecotourisni had the greatest positively and significantly influence on the residents" ecological intention (β = 0.383, p<0.001) and behavior (β = 0.250, p<0.001). So the local government and the national park management department should take various measures to deepen the residents' sense of identity and responsibility for the ecological protection in national parks, and also encourage the residents to participate in ecotourism.