From Place Attachment to Behavioral Intention: A Cultural Participation-Driven Mechanism in Museum Cultural Consumption

Against the backdrop of the growing emphasis on cultural confidence and the continuous expansion of cultural consumption, how local museums effectively transform local cultural resources into cultural and creative consumption behavior has become an important research issue. Taking the Luoyang Museum as the empirical context, this study integrates Place Attachment Theory (PALT) with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to construct a research model of “place attachment–cultural participation–perceived authenticity/experience satisfaction–behavioral intention.” Based on 182 valid samples, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed for empirical analysis. The results indicate that place attachment significantly and positively influences cultural participation; cultural participation significantly and positively affects experience satisfaction, perceived authenticity, and behavioral intention; experience satisfaction significantly enhances perceived authenticity; and perceived authenticity significantly promotes behavioral intention. Further analysis reveals that cultural participation plays a significant mediating role between place attachment and experience satisfaction, perceived authenticity, and behavioral intention. Perceived authenticity serves as a key mediator between cultural participation, experience satisfaction, and behavioral intention. In addition, multiple serial mediation paths, such as “cultural participation–experience satisfaction–perceived authenticity–behavioral intention,” are found to be significant. The findings demonstrate that place attachment does not directly translate into cultural consumption behavior, but instead operates through cultural participation to activate authenticity perception and experiential evaluation, which in turn influence behavioral intention. This study enriches the application of Place Attachment Theory and the S-O-R framework in the context of museum cultural consumption and provides both theoretical support and practical implications for enhancing the transformation capacity of cultural and creative products in local museums. This study enriches the application of Place Attachment Theory and the S-O-R framework in museum cultural consumption research and provides theoretical support and practical implications for enhancing the transformation capacity of cultural and creative products in local museums, particularly in promoting sustainable cultural consumption.