Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire

Abstract

The Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire (Adam, 2023) is a comprehensive psychometric measurement instrument designed to assess both the cognitive-rational and moral-normative determinants influencing tourists’ behavioral intentions to adopt reusable alternatives in place of single-use plastics. Addressing a critical intersection of environmental psychology, sustainable hospitality, and tourism management, the scale synthesizes foundational paradigms from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Norm Activation Model (NAM), augmented by place attachment theory. The operationalized survey instrument comprises 27 refined indicator items distributed across eight core latent dimensions: Place Attachment (4 items), Awareness of Consequences (3 items), Ascription of Responsibility (3 items), Personal Norm (3 items), Attitude Toward Reusables (4 items), Subjective Norm (3 items), Perceived Behavioral Control (4 items), and Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives (3 items). Responses are captured using a fully anchored 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”). Psychometric validation conducted among international and domestic tourists visiting ecologically and culturally sensitive destinations demonstrated robust construct integrity. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) affirmed strong structural fit (GFI = 0.972, CFI = 0.993, NFI = 0.976, RMSEA = 0.041), while convergent validity was evidenced by Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values exceeding 0.50 across all latent factors. Discriminant validity satisfied the rigorous Fornell-Larcker criterion, and internal consistency reliability was documented by Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability coefficients exceeding established thresholds (α > 0.70). This scale provides researchers, conservation strategists, and tourism policymakers with a reliable, empirically robust diagnostic tool for designing behavioral interventions and evaluating waste-reduction initiatives in nature-based and destination settings.

Keywords

Ascription of Responsibility, Attitude toward Reusables, Awareness of Consequences, Behavioral Intention, Conservation Behaviors, Norm Activation Model, Perceived Behavioral Control, Personal Norm, Place Attachment, Single-Use Plastics, Subjective Norm, Sustainable Tourism, Theory of Planned Behavior

Authors

The scale was developed and empirically validated by Issahaku Adam, Ph.D., an academic researcher in sustainable tourism and hospitality management.

• Author: Issahaku Adam
• Affiliation: Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
• ORCID Identifier: 0000-0002-4769-9504
• Email Address: [email protected]
• Correspondence Address: Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Cafeteria Road, Cafeteria Building, Room 3, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, PMB CC143

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire is to quantify, evaluate, and disentangle the complex socio-cognitive, emotional, and moral mechanisms that govern tourists’ decisions to transition from single-use plastics to reusable items. Single-use plastic waste represents an escalating global ecological crisis, disproportionately degrading coastal ecosystems, national parks, and cultural heritage destinations. In tourism environments, consumption dynamics are notoriously complex: transient visitors often exhibit higher rates of resource consumption and waste generation compared to their baseline behaviors at home, driven by hedonic mindsets, unfamiliarity with local municipal waste management, and convenience-oriented purchasing patterns.

Historically, environmental management initiatives relied primarily on rational-choice economic frameworks, presuming that individuals weigh costs against personal utility before executing pro-environmental actions. However, purely rational models fail to explain why tourists engage in voluntary conservation behaviors that entail personal inconvenience, such as carrying refillable water flasks, reusable shopping totes, or non-disposable dining utensils. Conversely, purely altruistic or moral models often neglect structural barriers, such as lack of accessibility to potable water refill stations or social normative pressures. The instrument addresses this theoretical and empirical schism by operationalizing an integrated diagnostic framework that measures both rational considerations (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control) and moral activations (awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, personal norms), while accounting for the affective bond tourists form with the visited environment (place attachment).

In research contexts, the scale functions as an empirical measurement model for structural equation modeling (SEM), path analysis, and cluster analysis across diverse tourism typologies, including eco-tourism, cultural heritage tourism, and urban recreation. In clinical, organizational, and managerial applications, the questionnaire provides environmental psychologists, park managers, municipal destination planners, and hospitality operators with targeted diagnostic insights. Practitioners can identify whether non-compliance with plastic-reduction protocols stems from deficit in moral awareness (e.g., unawareness of local marine devastation), normative deficit (e.g., peer groups normalizing single-use convenience), or behavioral control deficits (e.g., absence of sanitization or refill infrastructure). By diagnosing the exact cognitive or structural points of failure, stakeholders can tailor behavioral nudges, communication campaigns, and structural interventions to accelerate sustainable consumption transitions.

Psychological Construct

The questionnaire conceptualizes the intention to adopt reusable alternatives as a multidimensional phenomenon driven by eight distinct latent constructs. Each construct represents an established psychological or affective dimension operationalized within an environmental decision-making context:

1. Place Attachment (PA)

Rooted in environmental psychology, place attachment reflects the cognitive and emotional bonding an individual develops with a specific geographic location. In the context of tourism, it captures the extent to which visitors identify with, value, and feel emotionally tied to the destination. Highly attached tourists view the destination not merely as an interchangeable physical backdrop, but as an integral component of their extended self-concept. Within this scale, place attachment serves as an exogenous emotional driver that heightens moral sensitivity to destination degradation.

2. Awareness of Consequences (AC)

Drawn from Schwartz’s moral decision framework, awareness of consequences measures an individual’s knowledge and cognitive recognition regarding the adverse environmental, ecological, and public health ramifications caused by single-use plastic waste. The construct evaluates the extent to which a tourist recognizes that plastic pollution imperils wildlife, destroys marine habitats, and compromises destination aesthetics.

3. Ascription of Responsibility (AR)

Ascription of responsibility assesses the degree to which an individual accepts accountability for the negative externalities produced by single-use plastic disposal. Rather than deflecting blame exclusively onto local municipal authorities, tour operators, or commercial vendors, individuals with high ascription of responsibility acknowledge their personal and collective role as tourists in causing and mitigating environmental harm.

4. Personal Norm (PN)

Representing the central moral engine of the Norm Activation Model, personal norms reflect an internalized, self-administered moral obligation to execute specific pro-environmental actions. Unlike social expectations enforced by external sanctions, personal norms operate through internal emotional mechanisms: adherence elicits pride and moral self-satisfaction, whereas violation triggers guilt, cognitive dissonance, or self-reproach. In this measure, personal norms reflect a generalized and uncompromising moral duty to minimize single-use plastics by adopting reusable goods.

5. Attitude Toward Reusable Alternatives (ATT)

Originating from the Theory of Planned Behavior, attitude reflects an individual’s positive or negative evaluative disposition toward using reusable alternatives when traveling. This construct measures the instrumental and hedonic value assigned to reusable goods, assessing whether tourists view utilizing reusables as desirable, advantageous, beneficial, and intrinsically worthwhile.

6. Subjective Norm (SN)

Subjective norms capture perceived social pressure from significant referent others—such as travel companions, family, peers, and respected social figures. The construct measures normative beliefs regarding whether influential others expect, encourage, or approve of the respondent eschewing single-use plastics in favor of reusable alternatives during their destination visit.

7. Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC)

Perceived behavioral control quantifies an individual’s self-assessed efficacy, capability, and autonomy regarding the execution of the target behavior. It accounts for both internal factors (such as personal willingness, time allocation, and planning capacity) and external factors (such as access to cleaning facilities or availability of refill points). Items gauge whether using reusables is perceived as fundamentally achievable, accessible, and within the respondent’s direct volition.

8. Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives (INT)

Behavioral intention constitutes the primary endogenous outcome construct of the model, representing the conscious operational decision, readiness, and deliberate plan to employ reusable containers, bottles, bags, and cutlery while traveling. In line with psychometric conventions, behavioral intention is regarded as the immediate proximal antecedent to actual overt pro-environmental behavior.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the model integrates two foundational theoretical paradigms in social and environmental psychology—the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and the Norm Activation Model (Schwartz, 1977)—synthesized with Place Attachment Theory (Ramkissoon et al., 2013). This integrated approach overcomes the historical dichotomy between self-interest-driven rational models and altruism-driven moral models in pro-environmental research.

The Theory of Planned Behavior posits that human action is guided by three core considerations: behavioral beliefs regarding probable consequences (yielding favorable or unfavorable attitudes), normative beliefs concerning social expectations (producing perceived subjective norms), and control beliefs regarding the presence of facilitating or inhibiting factors (generating perceived behavioral control). When combined, attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control directly determine an individual’s behavioral intention. While the TPB possesses high predictive utility across a broad spectrum of behaviors, scholars have frequently critiqued its narrow focus on utilitarian self-interest, arguing that it underrepresents ethical imperatives, environmental stewardship, and moral values that commonly guide non-remunerative conservation efforts.

To address this limitation, the model incorporates Schwartz’s Norm Activation Model (NAM), originally formulated to explicate altruistic and pro-social behaviors. The NAM posits that pro-environmental actions occur when an individual’s personal norm (moral obligation) is activated. This activation follows a sequential cognitive chain: an individual must first develop an awareness of consequences (recognizing that plastic pollution inflicts real environmental damage), which subsequently triggers an ascription of responsibility (acknowledging personal accountability for these consequences). Once responsibility is ascribed, moral obligation (personal norm) is engaged, exerting direct motivational force upon conservation intentions.

By blending the TPB and NAM within a unified structural model, the instrument captures dual psychological pathways: the cognitive-rational route (where reusable usage is weighed through attitudes, social expectations, and perceived feasibility) and the moral-normative route (where reusables are adopted to fulfill ethical imperatives and alleviate ecological guilt). Furthermore, by situating place attachment as an affective catalyst, the model operationalizes how emotional identification with a geographic territory amplifies moral sensitivity, strengthening the activation pathway from consequence awareness to moral action.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the instrument was systematically established through a rigorous evaluation of construct validity, content validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity in accordance with contemporary structural equation modeling standards (Hair et al., 2011; Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Content and Face Validity

Content validity was established by adapting items from verified, highly cited psychometric scales in pro-environmental and tourism literature (e.g., Ajzen, 1991; Han et al., 2010; Han, 2015; Ramkissoon et al., 2013). Items were contextualized to specifically reference tourist behaviors, destination environments, and single-use plastic waste alternatives. Expert review panels confirmed that the items accurately mirrored the intended theoretical domains without ambiguity or construct overlap.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity determines whether the indicators within each latent variable correlate strongly and converge upon a single common construct. In the measurement validation conducted by Adam (2023), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that standardized factor loadings for all retained items were statistically significant (p < 0.001) and well above the recommended baseline threshold of 0.60, with the vast majority exceeding 0.70 to 0.85. Furthermore, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each of the eight latent constructs exceeded the conventional 0.50 cutoff established by Fornell and Larcker (1981), demonstrating that each latent variable explains more than half of the variance in its respective set of indicator items.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity assesses the empirical uniqueness of each construct relative to others in the model. This was verified through the standard Fornell-Larcker criterion: the square root of the AVE for every latent variable was substantially higher than its bivariate correlation coefficients with any other construct in the measurement model. Additionally, heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratios of correlations were verified to fall below the conservative conservative threshold of 0.85 (Henseler et al., 2015). This confirmed that despite theoretical interconnectedness (such as the conceptual closeness between awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility, or personal norms and behavioral intention), each dimension remains statistically discrete.

Reliability

The internal consistency reliability of the Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire was comprehensively evaluated across all eight dimensions using both Cronbach’s alpha (α) and Composite Reliability (CR) metrics.

In accordance with classical psychometric conventions (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994; Peterson, 1994), an alpha or CR threshold of 0.70 signifies acceptable reliability, while values above 0.80 indicate strong internal consistency suitable for structural equation modeling. In empirical evaluations of the scale:

• Place Attachment (PA): Displayed robust internal consistency, with Cronbach’s α > 0.80 and CR > 0.82, evidencing strong item convergence around place identity and emotional bonding.
• Awareness of Consequences (AC): Demonstrated high reliability (α > 0.78, CR > 0.80), confirming that items reliably capture perceived ecological threats across respondents.
• Ascription of Responsibility (AR): Demonstrated strong internal reliability (α > 0.75, CR > 0.79), indicating coherent measurement of personal and collective tourist accountability.
• Personal Norm (PN): Exhibited excellent internal consistency (α > 0.82, CR > 0.84), showing high measurement precision for internalized moral duty.
• Attitude Toward Reusables (ATT): Yielded exceptional internal consistency (α > 0.86, CR > 0.88), reflecting cohesive evaluation across utilitarian and hedonic descriptors.
• Subjective Norm (SN): Documented acceptable to strong reliability (α > 0.77, CR > 0.80), confirming that normative social referents were consistently appraised.
• Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC): Exhibited solid psychometric stability (α > 0.76, CR > 0.78) across measures of volitional access, resources, and self-efficacy.
• Behavioral Intention (INT): Recorded superior reliability indices (α > 0.88, CR > 0.90), demonstrating that intention, willingness, and planning loaded with high internal homogeneity.

Test-retest analyses across subsamples confirmed temporal stability over short intervals, while item-total correlations across all retained indicators surpassed the standard 0.40 threshold, validating that no individual item attenuated scale coherence.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the instrument was tested using a sequential analytical approach comprising both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within a structural equation modeling environment.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial instrument refinement, EFA using principal axis factoring with promax (oblique) rotation was conducted to verify that indicators clustered into their theoretically postulated domains. Sampling adequacy was verified via the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure (KMO > 0.85), and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity reached statistical significance (p < 0.001), justifying factorability. During factor extraction, two candidate items were systematically purged from the initial item pool due to substandard factor loadings failing to meet the conservative 0.60 threshold (Hair et al., 2011) or exhibiting unacceptable cross-loadings (> 0.30) on secondary factors. The remaining 27 items resolved clearly into eight well-defined orthogonal/oblique factors accounting for over 65% of the total cumulative variance.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Following item purification, a rigorous CFA using maximum likelihood estimation was executed on the 27-item measurement model. All standardized path loadings from latent factors to their corresponding observed indicators were high, ranging from 0.64 to 0.91, and statistically significant at p < 0.001. Model fit was evaluated using multiple baseline goodness-of-fit indices (Byrne, 2010):

• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI): 0.972 (surpassing the standard > 0.90 threshold, indicating excellent data-model correspondence)
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.993 (substantially exceeding the conventional > 0.95 cutoff for superior fit)
• Normed Fit Index (NFI): 0.976 (demonstrating strong incremental fit relative to the null independence model)
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.041 (with a 90% confidence interval falling well below the 0.05 threshold, signifying close approximate fit to the population covariance matrix)
• Normed Chi-Square (χ²/df): Remained within the acceptable 1.0 to 3.0 range.

The empirical CFA fit indices verified that the eight-factor multidimensional structure represents the underlying empirical data with high fidelity, confirming that the combination of TPB, NAM, and place attachment forms a structurally stable psychological profile.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Name: Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire
• Test Type: Original self-report survey scale / psychometric measurement model
• Author: Issahaku Adam (2023)
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Number of Items: 27 indicator items (retained after psychometric purification)
• Construct Dimensions / Subscales: 8 distinct factors
  • Place Attachment (PA, 4 items: Items 1–4)
  • Awareness of Consequences (AC, 3 items: Items 5–7)
  • Ascription of Responsibility (AR, 3 items: Items 8–10)
  • Personal Norm (PN, 3 items: Items 11–13)
  • Attitude Toward Reusables (ATT, 4 items: Items 14–17)
  • Subjective Norm (SN, 3 items: Items 18–20)
  • Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC, 4 items: Items 21–24)
  • Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives (INT, 3 items: Items 25–27)
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree)
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat disagree
  • 4 = Neutral / Neither agree nor disagree
  • 5 = Somewhat agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly agree
• Scoring Protocol: All items are positively framed; no reverse-scored items are utilized. Individual subscale scores are computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of the respective subscale indicator items (ranging from 1.00 to 7.00). In structural equation modeling contexts, items are specified directly as reflective indicators for their corresponding latent variables. Higher scores consistently indicate higher levels of attachment, moral activation, positive attitudes, perceived social expectations, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized web survey. Average completion time ranges between 7 and 12 minutes.
• Target Population: Human adults (18 years and older), including young adults (18–29), thirties (30–39), and middle age/older adults (40+), visiting international or domestic tourist destinations.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Antecedents of Intention to Use Reusable Alternatives–Model Questionnaire was published in 2023 by Dr. Issahaku Adam in the Journal of Travel Research. The instrument is accessible for non-commercial, academic, scientific, and educational research purposes without monetary fee, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original author and journal publication. Researchers, destination management organizations (DMOs), and sustainability auditors intending to utilize or modify the instrument for commercial consulting, commercial survey products, or cross-cultural adaptations are requested to contact the corresponding author directly:

• Corresponding Author: Issahaku Adam, Ph.D.
• Institution: University of Cape Coast, Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management
• Email: [email protected]
• Fee: None for non-profit academic research.
• Copyright / Licensing: Academic usage governed under standard fair use and publisher licensing agreements (Sage Publications / Journal of Travel Research, 2023).

References

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Items of the Scale