Journal article
Cognitive psychology and tourism research: state of the art
Tourism Review, Vol.72(2), pp.221-237
2017
Abstract
Purpose: This review aims to discuss concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, identifies tourism studies applying them and discusses key areas for future research. The paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive psychology for understanding why tourists and particularly pleasure travellers demonstrate the behaviour they exhibit. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews 165 papers from the cognitive psychology and literature regarding pleasure travel related to consciousness, mindfulness, flow, retrospection, prospection, attention, schema and memory, feelings and emotions. The papers are chosen to demonstrate the state of the art of the literature and provide guidance on how these concepts are vital for further research. Findings: The paper demonstrates that research has favoured a behaviourist rather than cognitive approach to the study of hedonic travel. Cognitive psychology can help to understand the mental processes connecting perception of stimuli with behaviour. Numerous examples are provided: top-down and bottom-up attention processes help to understand advertising effectiveness, theories of consciousness and memory processes help to distinguish between lived and recalled experience, cognitive appraisal theory predicts the emotion elicited based on a small number of appraisal dimensions such as surprise and goals, knowledge of the mental organisation of autobiographical memory and schema support understanding of destination image formation and change and the effect of storytelling on decision-making, reconstructive bias in prospection or retrospection about a holiday inform the study of pleasurable experience. These findings indicate need for further cognitive psychology research in tourism generally and studies of holiday travel experiences. Research limitations/implications: This review is limited to cognitive psychology and excludes psychoanalytic studies. Practical implications: Cognitive psychology provides insight into key areas of practical importance. In general, the use of a cognitive approach allows further understanding of leisure tourists' behaviour. The concept of attention is vital to understand destination advertising effectiveness, biases in memory process help to understand visitor satisfaction and experience design and so on. Use of cognitive psychology theory will lead to better practical outcomes for tourists seeking pleasurable experiences and destination managers. Originality value: This is the first review that examines the application of concepts from cognitive psychology to the study of leisure tourism in particular. The concepts studied are also applicable to study of travellers generally. © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited.
Details
- Title
- Cognitive psychology and tourism research: state of the art
- Authors
- Liubov Skavronskaya (Author) - Griffith UniversityNoel Scott (Author) - Griffith UniversityBrent D Moyle (Author) - Griffith UniversityD Le (Author) - Griffith UniversityA Hadinejad (Author) - Griffith UniversityR Zhang (Author) - Griffith UniversityS Gardiner (Author) - Griffith UniversityA Coghlan (Author) - Griffith UniversityA Shakeela (Author) - Griffith University
- Publication details
- Tourism Review, Vol.72(2), pp.221-237
- Publisher
- Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
- DOI
- 10.1108/TR-03-2017-0041
- ISSN
- 1660-5373
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Sustainability Research Centre; USC Business School - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450559902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism
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