Authors: Braden Bringhurst, Michael Ray, Megan Barbier, Ellie Smith
Mentors: Peter Ward
Insitution: Brigham Young University
In travel, the interplay of social connection and novelty profoundly shapes the impact of peoples' experiences. This study examines novelty, positive emotions, social connection, and the impact of the experience on participants through the lens of the Self-Expansion Theory. Novelty is defined as the process of experiencing or encountering something different to the objects regularly encountered in everyday life. Social connection is defined as the affective and cognitive perception of interrelatedness within social groups, encompassing emotional responses like feeling understood and valued. Positive emotion is defined as pleasant multicomponent response tendencies, including joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love. Experience impact is defined using the experience typology. This typology starts with prosaic experiences or ordinary parts of life. The next progression is memorable experiences which introduce felt emotions into the experience. The next stage is meaningful which introduces discovery as well as emotions into the experience. The final stage is transformational which introduces a desire, or actual personal change happening to the experiencer as well as emotions and discovery. To measure the various stages of the experience typology framework, we use the Experience Impact Scale to identify the personal impact of a tourist experience. These various constructs are explored through the perspective of the Self-Expansion Theory which states that people seek to expand their potential efficacy, perspectives, and sense of self through the development of relationships. This study utilizes this theory by looking into novelty’s effect on the impact of an experience through the lens of Self-Expansion Theory with respect to social connection and positive emotions as mediating factors. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS v 28. Models were gradually expanded on, starting with the initial relationship between subjective novelty and experience impact. Later, a mediating model was considered that incorporated subjective connection and positive emotions as mediating effects on experience impact. The model examining the relationship between subjective novelty and experience impact as mediated by subjective connection and positive emotions had an acceptable model fit. The significant factors that contributed to the model were subjective novelty which had a standardized regression weight of .264, subjective connection which had a standardized regression weight of .222, and positive emotions which had a standardized regression weight of .256. The model explained 16% of the variance within experience impact. This study demonstrates that novelty influences social connection which influences positive emotion which positively impacts the tourist experience. People designing experiences should create a novel experience for the experiencer that evokes positive emotions and facilitates social connection. Future research could explore the relationship between the novelty of location and activities associated with tourist participation and the impact on the experience.