Perceived sustainability authenticity as a place-based psychological cue: moral emotions, psychological ownership, and responsible environmental cooperation in nature-based accommodation

Tourism sustainability partly depends on guests’ voluntary cooperation. However, how the perceived authenticity of place-based environmental practices relates to discretionary conduct during an accommodation stay remains insufficiently understood. Here, we examined whether perceived sustainability authenticity was associated with self-reported responsible environmental cooperation through moral emotions and psychological ownership and whether these indirect associations varied with green skepticism. We surveyed 337 guests staying in rural nature-based accommodation in Yangshuo, China. Covariance-based structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the measurement and structural models, and bootstrapping was used to estimate indirect and conditional indirect associations. Perceived sustainability authenticity was positively associated with responsible environmental cooperation, both directly and indirectly through moral emotions and psychological ownership. The two indirect associations were consistent with conceptually distinct affective and responsibility-oriented pathways. Both were larger among guests with higher green skepticism, and the corresponding indices of moderated mediation excluded zero. This pattern was consistent with the interpretation that skeptical guests applied more stringent credibility assessments when comparing environmental claims with observable practices. The findings position perceived sustainability authenticity as a contextual credibility cue associated with voluntary environmental cooperation and distinguish the psychological meanings of moral emotions and psychological ownership. Because the data were cross-sectional, single-source, and self-reported, they did not establish temporal ordering, causal mediation, objectively verified environmental conduct, or persistence beyond the accommodation stay. Even so, the findings point to a clear practical priority: sustainability claims need to be matched by visible routine practices, while guest participation remains voluntary, credible, and minimally burdensome.