Shaping Cultural Inheritance Intention through Heritage Anthropomorphic Interpretation: The Moderating Role of Situational Awe

The role of heritage interpretation in cultural inheritance is increasingly recognized, yet how different types of heritage anthropomorphic interpretation affect tourists’ cultural inheritance intention remains unclear. Based on four experiments, this study explores the effects of heritage anthropomorphic interpretation (imagery, verbal, and integrated) on tourists’ cultural inheritance intention. Our findings include: (1) Heritage anthropomorphic interpretation enhances cultural inheritance intention, with the integrated type outperforming the imagery type, but not the verbal type. (2) Cultural involvement mediates the relationship between heritage anthropomorphic interpretation and cultural inheritance intention. (3) Situational awe moderates this relationship—under low awe, the imagery type is more effective than other types, whereas no significant differences emerge under high awe. This study introduces an anthropomorphic perspective to heritage interpretation and identifies the impacts of differentiated interpretation types on cultural inheritance intention. It extends dual coding and meaning transfer theories and contributes to effective interpretation design strategies.