Inhibited conviction, activated conviction: Opposing boundary conditions of the attitude-behaviour gap in heritage tourism

Tourists often hold pro-environmental attitudes that are only weakly reflected in their conduct. Research on this attitude-behaviour gap has concentrated on conditions that weaken it, and where theory addresses strong situational forces, as in the Attitude-Behaviour-Context framework and deterrence reasoning, it predicts attenuation. The focus theory of normative conduct implies the opposite: cues that make injunctive norms salient should make existing attitudes more consequential. This study tests these competing predictions. We model sustainable intelligence as an antecedent of pro-environmental attitude and examine structural constraints and perceived compliance pressure as moderators of the attitude-conduct association. Survey data from 310 tourists at Amer Fort, part of a UNESCO World Heritage property in Jaipur, India, were analysed using PLS-SEM with two-stage latent interactions. Sustainable intelligence was positively associated with attitude, and attitude with self-reported on-site conduct. The two interactions were significant and opposite in sign: the attitude-conduct association was weaker under higher structural constraints and stronger under higher compliance pressure, and it was non-significant only where compliance pressure was lowest. No significant difference between the two interaction magnitudes was detected. The pattern is more consistent with focus theory than with the attenuation that the Attitude-Behaviour-Context framework predicts, although normative salience was not measured directly. Treating attitude-conduct correspondence as the net product of opposing situational forces shifts attention to the conditions under which attitudes are expressed. For site managers, interpretation and visible compliance cues may work as complements, a possibility that warrants field testing.