From Experience Quality to Heritage Support: Psychological Pathways in an Adaptively Reused Industrial Heritage Environment

Industrial heritage adaptive reuse depends partly on public support for conservation, cultural continuity, and continued use. However, how visitors’ overall experience relates to such support remains insufficiently explained. Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, this study examines historical empathy, psychological ownership, and experience co-creation as mechanisms linking experience quality to sustainable heritage support behavior, operationalized as self-reported support intentions. A cross-sectional online survey of 486 Chinese tourists who had visited Taoxichuan Cultural and Creative District in Jingdezhen, China, within the preceding six months was analyzed using structural equation modeling, bootstrapping, and moderation analysis. Experience quality was positively associated with all three mechanisms, which were positively associated with heritage support. Three single-mediator indirect effects and two serial indirect effects through historical empathy or experience co-creation followed by psychological ownership were significant. Authenticity orientation strengthened the associations of historical empathy and psychological ownership with support, whereas its interaction with experience co-creation was not significant. These findings identify psychological ownership as a shared link between historical understanding, participatory experience, and heritage support. They provide visitor-level evidence to inform the coordination of spatial organization, heritage interpretation, and participatory uses in industrial heritage adaptive reuse.