From Emotion to Action: Factors Associated with Tourists’ Environmentally Responsible Behavior in a Full AE-TPB Framework

Anticipated emotions have been incorporated into extensions of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), but their incremental explanatory contribution and structural placement remain unclear in tourism research. This study examines whether anticipated pride and anticipated guilt provide additional explanatory value and how their associations vary within an extended TPB framework for tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). Survey data from 482 adult tourists in Guilin, China, were analyzed using structural equation modeling with conventional maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, bootstrap tests of indirect associations, and sensitivity analyses using robust maximum likelihood (MLR) and weighted least squares mean- and variance-adjusted (WLSMV) estimation. A canonical TPB model served as a benchmark, while a restricted anticipated emotion–extended Theory of Planned Behavior (AE-TPB) model and the prespecified full AE-TPB model (Model 3) were compared to assess the incremental contribution of the anticipated-emotion-to-attitude paths. Under conventional ML estimation, Model 3 showed a modest incremental contribution: R2 for environmental attitude increased by 0.008, environmentally responsible behavioral intention (ERBI) remained unchanged to three decimal places, and ERB increased by 0.001; anticipated pride was positively associated with environmental attitude, whereas anticipated guilt was not. A competing specification (Model 4) adding direct emotion–ERBI paths was favored over Model 3 in nested comparisons across ML, MLR, and WLSMV estimation. Across the three estimators, anticipated pride was positively associated with both environmental attitude and ERBI, whereas anticipated guilt was positively associated with ERBI but not with environmental attitude. Absolute model fit under WLSMV remained mixed, and the perceived behavioral control- environmental attitude association remained sensitive to estimation method and model specification. Overall, the findings support differentiated roles of anticipated pride and guilt and indicate that their contribution depends partly on structural placement within the extended TPB.