How Animal Metaphors Increase Tourists' Waste Classification Intention?

Abstract Previous researches have shown that animal metaphors play an important role in promoting specific behavioral dispositions of individuals. However, we are not well aware of the role of animal metaphors in tourists’ waste classification intentions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of animal metaphors advertising for waste classification in scenic spots (versus non-animal metaphors advertising) on tourists’ waste classification intentions. Four experiments (N = 1051) were conducted in this study to examine the impacts of animal metaphors advertising in scenic spots, on tourists’ waste classification intentions, which enriches the literature on the animal metaphors and tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors. The results show that the animal metaphors advertising about waste classification in scenic spots can effectively increase tourists’ waste classification intentions. We explored the mediating role of tourists’ perceptions of cute animal images in animal metaphors advertising, and the moderating role of visual imagery for animal metaphors advertising, on the relationship between animal metaphors advertising and tourists’ waste classification intentions. The results show that there is a significant interaction effect between visual imagery and animal metaphors advertising. In conclusion, this study reveals the different impacts of animal metaphors, cute images and visual imagery on individual tourists, which provides new insights for scenic spot managers to choose waste classification strategies and the looks of bins.