Behavioral Reconstruction in the Digital Environment: A Study on the Impact of Rural E-commerce Clusters in Inner Mongolia on Regional Social Psychology

Under the dual strategic frameworks of “Digital China” and “Rural Revitalization,” rural e-commerce has become a transformative force in reshaping regional social behavioral mechanisms. This study examines the evolution of social psychological structures driven by the growth of rural e-commerce clusters in Inner Mongolia, aiming to transcend conventional economic-performance-oriented paradigms by focusing on the mechanisms of cognition, trust, and identity reconstruction in digital environments. Integrating Environmental Behavior Theory, Social Capital Theory, and Institutional Trust Theory, the study develops a four-dimensional analytical model: “Rural E-commerce Clusters → Social Capital → Institutional Trust → Social Psychological Structure.” The model posits that rural e-commerce not only optimizes resource allocation through platform mechanisms and information flow but also reconstructs behavioral expectations and collective psychological logic through embedded community interactions and institutional rule-making. Based on a survey of 346 valid responses from Inner Mongolia, structural equation modeling (SEM) results confirm that the development of rural e-commerce clusters significantly and positively influences regional social psychological restructuring. Both social capital and institutional trust serve as significant mediators in this process, and a chained mediation effect is established, illustrating the layered psychological reconstruction mechanism under platform governance. This research advances the theoretical discourse on behavioral transformation in digitally mediated rural governance and offers policy-oriented insights for modernizing rural social structures in the context of digital economies.