Environmentally responsible behavior of residents in tourist destinations: the mediating role of psychological ownership

Environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) of residents contributes to sustainable tourism in a given tourist destination, and it is therefore important to explore the mechanisms that shape this behavior. As an integral part of the sustainable tourism framework, residents’ justice perception has been found to affect their attitude and behavior toward tourism. According to equity theory, perceived justice stimulates positive responses and actions; thus we hypothesized that residents’ perception of justice when participating in destination community tourism is a predictor of ERB. We further examined the mediating role of psychological ownership. Data were collected from 348 residents of three villages near Chengdu, China. We found that residents’ perceived justice significantly impacted their psychological ownership and ERB. In turn, psychological ownership mediated the relationship between perceived justice and ERB. Our results provide management insights for destination communities that could help to achieve sustainable tourism.