Jinzhe Yan

As social media becomes embedded in travel decision-making, idealized portrayals, information overload, and difficulty assessing content authenticity can trigger travel anxiety. Although chatbots are widely used in travel planning, prior research has focused mainly on adoption and functional performance, leaving it unclear whether their communication style can address users’ emotional responses. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we compared social-oriented and task-oriented chatbot responses across three experiments in which participants imagined browsing travel content on social media. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who read the social-oriented response reported higher travel intention than those who read the task-oriented response. In Study 2, participants in the social-oriented condition also reported lower social media-induced travel anxiety (SMITA), and the indirect effect through SMITA was significant. In Study 3, this indirect effect was stronger in the low-self-efficacy condition than in the high-self-efficacy condition. These findings suggest that SMITA may serve as an emotional pathway linking chatbot communication style to travel intention and that the strength of this pathway depends on how confident travelers feel about the decision at hand, extending chatbot research in tourism from functional outcomes to emotional appraisals.

The rapid rise in autonomous AI agents is reshaping personal task automation and human–AI collaboration. This study develops a theoretically informed framework, drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the Technology Acceptance Model, and the sense of virtual community, to examine how comment topics and sentiment polarity relate to comment endorsement and how these associations vary across levels of reply activity. Using 55,502 raw comments from 1000 popular YouTube videos about OpenClaw, we retained 14,974 high-quality English comments for analysis. We used BERTopic to identify the main comment topics, and RoBERTa to classify sentiment polarity. The results show that (1) topics related to functionality are positively associated with comment endorsement, whereas those related to security and hardware are negatively associated with comment endorsement, and (2) the interaction associations involving reply count vary across different topics and sentiment polarity. These findings reveal users’ key concerns and emotional responses toward the emerging OpenClaw technology and offer theoretically informed and practical implications for iteratively improving AI agent tools.

Generative artificial intelligence has transformed AI chatbots into systems that can provide information, emotional feedback, and social interaction. Although prior research has examined AI adoption, trust, and continuance intention, less is known about sustained reliance on AI chatbots and its relationship with psychological adaptation. Drawing on an integrated compensation–resource framework, this study examined whether social anxiety was indirectly associated with psychological resilience through AI chatbot dependence and whether this association varied across levels of perceived social support. Cross-sectional survey data from 395 adult AI chatbot users recruited through an online survey platform in China were analyzed using regression-based path analysis and PROCESS Model 7. Social anxiety was positively associated with AI chatbot dependence and negatively associated with psychological resilience, while AI chatbot dependence was negatively associated with resilience after accounting for social anxiety. A small but statistically significant negative indirect association was observed through AI chatbot dependence. Higher perceived social support was associated with a weaker social anxiety–dependence association and a smaller negative indirect association. This buffering pattern was statistically significant but modest and weakened rather than eliminated the indirect association. These findings identify a context-specific pattern of statistical associations in human–AI interaction while underscoring the need for longitudinal research to establish temporal and causal direction.

Trust is a highly fragile aspect of relationships, and once it is damaged, the question of how to restore it becomes crucial. Three studies were conducted to investigate the effects of narrative and non-narrative apologies, self-determination, and temporal distance on restoring trust following a trust violation based on internal and external attributions. First, the results revealed that non-narrative and narrative apologies were more effective at restoring trust when the trust violation involved external and internal attributions. Second, this study found that self-determination played a mediating role in the connection between trust violation and trust restoration. Third, the findings provided evidence in support of the moderating effect of temporal distance on the restoration of trust following a violation. Specifically, the effect of repairing externally and internally attributed trust violations was more pronounced when the temporal distance was shorter and greater, respectively.

The global crisis has changed consumption behaviors. Drawing upon the compensatory consumption theory and the terror management theory (TMT), this study investigated whether, why, and when the threat of death affects the intention to engage in self-gifting. To this end, we enacted four studies. Study 1 ( n = 95) revealed that individuals tend to resort to self-gifting in order to cope with the threats of death, and this effect is positively mediated by perceived stress. Study 2 ( n = 120) found that conspiracist ideation positevely moderates the link between the threat of death and self-gifting. Study 3 ( n = 129) further showed the moderating role of perceived social support. Specifically, perceived social support weakened the effects of (a) the threat of death on self-gifting and (b) perceived stress on self-gifting. Finally, Study 4 ( n = 123) confirmed the moderating effect of loneliness. Specifically, loneliness strengthened the effects of (a) perceived stress on self-gifting and (b) the threat of death on self-gifting. These findings propose a need for further work on the origins and sources of self-gifting, particularly examining the roles of perceived stress, conspiracist ideation, perceived social support, and loneliness in the onset and maintenance of self-gifting behaviors.

In the context of ongoing digitalization, smart tourism (ST) is playing an increasingly prominent role in promoting the sustainable development of tourism enterprises. While prior research has largely emphasized macro-level strategies or technological deployment, there remains a lack of micro-level empirical analysis. Drawing upon panel data of Chinese A-share listed tourism firms from 2014 to 2023, this study constructs a firm-specific ST index using a novel text-mining approach that identifies the frequency of ST-related terms in corporate annual reports. Sustainable growth rate (SGR) serves as a metric for assessing long-term growth capability from a financial viewpoint, and is used to explore the linkage between ST and corporate growth performance. The empirical results show that ST is positively associated with SGR (β = .032, p < .01), and that the interaction terms ST × media attention (MA) and ST × financial slack (Slack) are also significantly positive (β = .012 and .023, respectively). These findings indicate that greater ST engagement leads to improved sustainable growth, particularly under conditions of high MA or abundant Slack. The analysis is based on a relatively small sample of A-share listed tourism firms, which constrains the generalisability of the results but allows for a focused examination of this sector. This paper deepens the micro-level perspective on ST, refines the understanding of contextual moderating effects, and offers theoretical and applied value for enterprises undergoing smart transformation in pursuit of sustainable advancement.

This study is based on data from 15,436 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies during the period 2009–2022 and examines the impact of ESG on firm value and the mediating role of corporate innovation capability. Firm value is proxied by Tobin’s Q, ESG is measured using Huazheng ESG scores, and innovation capability is represented by a weighted patent index. Using fixed-effects models and robustness text, we find that ESG has a significant positive impact on firm value, and this effect is transmitted through firms’ innovation capability. Further analysis reveals that the positive impact of ESG on firm value is more pronounced in non-SOE, firms in the maturity stage, and firms operating in highly competitive markets. Robustness tests confirm that the results are consistent and reliable. The findings suggest that ESG should be regarded as a strategic resource rather than a burden, as it creates firm value by enhancing innovation capability. The conclusions of this study not only extend the literature on the ESG–firm value nexus in the context of emerging markets but also provide practical implications for managers and policymakers seeking to integrate ESG into corporate strategy.