Zhang Ling, Yin Yangyan, Liu Lexin, Yang Sen
School of Culture Tourism, Guangdong University of Finance & Economics, Guangzhou, 510320, People's Republic of China.
School of Tourism and Exhibition, Hefei University, Hefei, 230601, People's Republic of China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 15;15(1):25633. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-11119-2.
While most research on virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology in museum tourism have focus on visitors' experience and stakeholders' views on AR projects, the relationship between VR/AR technology, personal norms and behaviour intentions of museum visitors has been overlooked. This study integrates the Norm Activation Theory (NAT) and the stimulus organism response (SOR) paradigm, and mainly studied that the impact of AR technology on personal norms and the pro-environmental behaviour intentions of museum visitors. Taking the AR project of the Marine Animal Branch in the Guangdong Museum as an example, this study collected 401 valid questionnaires and used confirmatory factor analysis for validity testing and structural equation analysis for hypothesis testing. This study found that the awareness of consequence of museum visitors positively affects personal norms through ascribed responsibility, and personal norms positively affect pro-environmental behavioural intentions. Personal norms are a direct factor affecting the museum visitors' pro-environmental behavioural intentions. The study also discovered that attitudes positively affect museum visitors' pro-environmental behavioural intentions. This study extends normative activation theory, and proposes a new theoretical model. Moreover, this study further confirms the causal chain of awareness of consequences-ascribed responsibility-personal norms-behaviour intention and proposes that awareness of consequence can influence attitudes and, thus, pro-environmental behavioural intentions. These additions it expected to enhance the predictive validity and explanatory power of Norm Activation Theory related to tourists' pro-environmental behavior. The conclusions of this study provide practical suggestions for the application of new technologies in the management of museums and other similar scenic spots.
虽然博物馆旅游中关于虚拟现实（VR）和增强现实（AR）技术的大多数研究都集中在游客体验以及利益相关者对AR项目的看法上，但VR/AR技术、个人规范与博物馆游客行为意图之间的关系却被忽视了。本研究整合了规范激活理论（NAT）和刺激机体反应（SOR）范式，主要研究了AR技术对个人规范以及博物馆游客亲环境行为意图的影响。以广东博物馆海洋动物分馆的AR项目为例，本研究收集了401份有效问卷，并使用验证性因子分析进行效度检验，使用结构方程分析进行假设检验。本研究发现，博物馆游客的后果意识通过归因责任对个人规范产生积极影响，个人规范对亲环境行为意图产生积极影响。个人规范是影响博物馆游客亲环境行为意图的直接因素。研究还发现，态度对博物馆游客的亲环境行为意图产生积极影响。本研究扩展了规范激活理论，提出了一个新的理论模型。此外，本研究进一步证实了后果意识-归因责任-个人规范-行为意图的因果链，并提出后果意识可以影响态度，进而影响亲环境行为意图。这些补充有望提高规范激活理论与游客亲环境行为相关的预测效度和解释力。本研究的结论为新技术在博物馆及其他类似景区管理中的应用提供了实践建议。
