Free does not mean free of responsibility: the impact of ecological identity and natural empathy on campers' environmental responsibility behavior.

Background: The garbage left behind and a series of environmentally irresponsible behaviors in the process of camping tourism have led to environmental problems such as the dangerous incident of "black bear injury" and "gray zone". The study examines the impact of altruistic motivations in the cognition-emotion-behavior chain, and investigates the social impact of the bystander effect on campers' environmental responsibility. At the same time, it examines the psychological impact of social norms on campers under the bystander effect, and conducts a systematic empirical investigation to understand the psychological mechanisms of campers' behavior.

Methods: A mixed-methods methodology was used to select sample data. Data that met the criteria were analyzed for reliability and validity and validation factor analysis using SPSS and Jamovi software. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping methods were then used to test for main effects, mediated effects, chained mediated effects, and mediated effects with moderation.

Results: A total of 441 respondents who had participated in camping were surveyed. 50.61% of respondents were male and 49.39% were female. The study found a significant positive relationship between ecological identity, nature empathy, altruistic motivation and campers' environmental responsibility behavior. We found that altruistic motivation mediates the effect of ecological identity (β = 0.138) and nature empathy (β = 0.137) on campers' environmental responsibility behaviors. Natural empathy and altruistic motivation together mediated 21.25% of the chain effects between ecological identity and campers' environmental responsibility behaviors. In addition, social norms moderated the effect of altruistic motivation on the role of campers' environmental responsibility behaviors.

Conclusions: Ecological identity and natural empathy have a direct impact on campers' environmental responsibility behavior. Altruistic motivation played a full mediating role between ecological identity and natural empathy on campers' environmental responsibility behaviors, and natural empathy, altruistic motivation played a chain mediating role between ecological identity on campers' environmental responsibility behaviors. Social norms moderated the effect of altruistic motivaton on campers' environmental responsibility behavior.