Tourist misbehavior: Psychological closeness to fellow consumers and informal social control

Abstract

The challenge of tourist misbehavior has drawn increasing attention from academic researchers and practitioners in the hospitality and tourism sector. Drawing on the concepts of psychological closeness and the perceived certainty of informal social control, this paper proposes that tourists (vs. non-tourists) are more inclined to misbehave in a given service situation because they feel less close to fellow consumers sharing the same service environment and perceive a lower likelihood of disapproval from them. However, personal implication (i.e., the extent to which fellow consumers suffer directly or indirectly from the misbehavior of the focal consumer) mitigates the effect of tourist status on the intention to misbehave. The results from three experiments confirm these arguments and show that the perceived certainty of informal social control (i.e., the perceived likelihood of disapproval) is a mediator that explains the interactive effects of tourist status and personal implication on intention to misbehave.