Psychological pathways linking digital museum environments to heritage-related cultural identity among generation Z college students in China

Introduction Digital museums function as media environments whose communication and interface cues may be associated with heritage-related cultural identity. This study examined these associations through psychological pathways and configurational heterogeneity among Generation Z college students in China. Methods Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, cross-sectional survey data from 425 students with prior experience using the Intelligent National Digital Museum were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Results Social media marketing and website aesthetics were positively associated with cultural heritage understanding, telepresence, and social presence, which were positively associated with heritage-related cultural identity. Telepresence showed the numerically strongest association with identity. Cultural heritage understanding also exhibited indirect associations through both forms of presence, suggesting its potential role as a cognitive hub. All four sequential indirect associations were significant but small in the primary model; the two originating from website aesthetics did not meet the 0.05 significance threshold in the alternative model. Exploratory fsQCA identified six configurations associated with high heritage-related cultural identity, summarized as cognition–immersion, cognition–social media, and aesthetics-social presence patterns. In this sample, no single condition met the necessity criterion for high heritage-related cultural identity, and configurations associated with low identity were not simple inverses of those associated with high identity. Discussion Together, the findings support cognitive, spatial, and social associations linking digital museum environments with heritage-related cultural identity, while showing that positive average associations coexist with configurational heterogeneity, equifinality, and asymmetry.