Most coastal communities are highly densely populated areas and simultaneously popular tourism and recreation destinations. Accordingly, coastal residents cause negative impacts on the environment through residence and recreation activities. Residents' environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) may be considered trivial but should be thought of as a fundamental step to minimizing negative impacts on the environment. Therefore, it is critical to find important factors that can promote ERB. The purpose of this study is to explore how several attitudinal and psychological variables, such as place attachment, attitudes toward tourism development (ATTD), and beach satisfaction are related to the facilitation of residents' ERB. For data collection, a mail survey was conducted using a stratified random sample of South Carolina coastal residents. The residents were from three coastal counties known as popular tourism and recreation destinations. Of 3000 households receiving questionnaires, 697 returned them. Factor analysis was conducted first for data reduction and then multiple regression analysis was conducted. The findings suggest that place attachment and ATTD were significant determinants promoting ERB. However, beach satisfaction and socio-demographic variables were not important. The study's results suggest that resource managers and policy makers need to provide more community participatory programs so residents become more attached to local natural resources and ultimately get more actively involved in ERB. Future research will be beneficial to generalize these findings to other coastal areas.
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