To Guilt or To Vacation: Constraining Effects of Guilt on Vacation Decisions

Abstract

Annual usage of paid leave in America has been declining although employees are granted more time off than before. This study proposes that taking paid leave for a vacation is perceived as a violation of workplace norms, which could partly explain this phenomenon. This violation is presumed to pose a threat to an employee’s social self at work. The accompanying guilt from such a threat is hypothesized to lead to lower vacation intention and more reparative actions (e.g. apologizing and decreasing vacation length). These consequences align with social self preservation theory, which posits that individuals aim to preserve a positive social self. Empirical results indicate that guilt fully mediates the impact of threats to the workplace social self on travel intentions and partially mediates the effects of such threats on reparative actions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Cannabis tourists' perceived constraints to engaging in commercial cannabis tourism overseas: a comparison of first-time and repeat tourists

“…First-time cannabis tourists mentioned three main types of perceived constraints (Figure 1), including three sub-dimensions of intrapersonal constraints: first, tourists' anticipated guilt (i.e. about engaging in cannabis tourism) was associated with potentially violating their personal standards (Huhmann and Botherton, 1997); this concept has been widely employed in tourism studies involving advertising (Soscia et al, 2019), tourist behaviour, such as in eco-tourism (Mkono et al, 2020), and vacation decisions (Tan and Li, 2020). However, only one study (Wen and Qi, 2020) identified tourists' anticipated guilt as an intrapersonal travel constraint for cannabis tourists visiting overseas destinations.…”

“…, 2019), tourist behaviour, such as in eco-tourism (Mkono et al. , 2020), and vacation decisions (Tan and Li, 2020). However, only one study (Wen and Qi, 2020) identified tourists' anticipated guilt as an intrapersonal travel constraint for cannabis tourists visiting overseas destinations.…”

Determinants of Consumers’ Intentions to Reduce Air Travel

“…Although research on consumer travel behavior has accumulated over the last decade (Backhaus et al, 2023;Dryhurst et al, 2020;So¨nmez & Graefe, 1998;Tan & Li, 2021;Verplanken et al, 1994), knowledge about consumer travel reduction is still incomplete, and its determinants, especially, require further attention. A review of the literature on consumer travel reduction shows that there are conceptual (e.g., Go¨ssling & Dolnicar, 2023) and empirical (Davison et al, 2014;Kazeminia et al, 2015;McDonald et al, 2015) studies.…”

“…Following the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), social pressure to behave in a socially approved way is a key predictor of both the attitude–behavior relationship (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003) and behavioral intentions (Ajzen, 1991). Studies in the field of tourism have shown that social norms or social risks can have a significant effect on consumer travel decisions (Davison et al, 2014; Doran & Larsen, 2016; Tan & Li, 2021). Doran and Larsen (2016) discovered that social norms positively predicted the choice of ecological travel options.…”

When Tourists are Angry or Fearful: (In)Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation in Changing Behavioral Intention

“…With tourism consumption widely conceptualized as an evolving, temporal five-phase process that commences with anticipation and travel planning and concludes with post-trip recollection (Clawson & Knetsch, 1966), each phase is arguably unique in its elicitation of NEs. To illustrate, Tan and Li (2021) demonstrated that guilt can constrain employees from taking paid time off for a vacation, which corresponds with the travel planning stage. Meanwhile, Li and Chan (2022) revealed that guilt, regret and shame were experienced by Chinese diaspora tourists during visits of their ancestral homes.…”