The Influence of Geographical Environment on Public Social Trust: What Role Do Tourism Activities Play?

Social trust is derived from the interaction of environmental and social factors, which has important significance for the sustainable development of society and social governance. In particular, in the post-pandemic era, tourist activity will receive special attention in terms of its role in the development of the public’s social trust. On the basis of the sample of big data, this research takes China as an example to study the influences of different geographical and environmental elements on individuals’ social trust as well as the common role played by the tourist activity. The research showed that the geographical environment and tourism activities have interacting effects on public social trust. This influencing mechanism is specifically manifested as the rice-growing ratio and tourist reception level can have interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in a tourist destination; pathogen stress and tourist supply level can exert interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in an area from which tourists originate; and economic development and tourist reception level can have interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in a tourist destination. By doing so, this research provides theoretical support and practical suggestions for the recovery of the public’s social trust from the perspective of tourism geography in the post-pandemic era.


Introduction
Social trust is an important research issue in the field of community psychology.It is of great significance for the good operation of society and the positive development of individuals [1][2][3][4].Social trust can be divided into specific and generalized trust.The former refers to an individual's familiarity with and trust in a specific person, and the latter refers to an individual's trust in the majority of strangers [5,6].In modern society, generalized trust is deemed more important than specified trust [7], and it is conceptualized as a type of social capital in a sense and can be used and translated into other forms of capital, such as economic and intellectual capital [8][9][10][11].At a macro level, generalized trust is considered helpful for a range of reasons, such as improving the quality of government management, driving economic growth, and boosting an individual's subjective well-being, social cohesion, and citizen participation [12][13][14][15].At a micro level, generalized trust has been proven to enhance people's sense of fairness, social relations, and positive work attitudes and behaviors [16,17].
This study chooses generalized trust as the conceptual basis.Trust can exert these significant influences for a number of reasons-it "saves" the cognitive resources of an individual, constructs mental representations of the environment for an individual, and mobilizes an individual's willingness to cooperate with other people [18,19].In existing studies, social trust is regarded as an important measure of community cohesion, and enables a community to thrive [20,21].Stolle [22] distinguishes two major areas that may benefit from a high level of trust: in the social field, social trust can boost tolerance and acceptance within a group, thus enabling a more diverse community to be built; in the political field, trust can be translated into a stronger driving force for citizens to participate in political affairs.For these reasons, the question of how to promote public social trust has become an important research problem in the domain of social governance [23].This study described in this paper uses generalized trust as its conceptual basis and aims to investigate the interacting effects of residential activities and tourism activities on public social trust.General social trust can be measured by both positive and negative dimensions.Positive dimensions focus on the question "In general, do you think that most people can be trusted?".Negative dimensions focus on the view that "Others will find ways to take advantage of you if you are not careful" [24,25].For the first question, if an individual's score exceeds the median, it indicates a certain level of social trust; if it is below the median, it indicates a lack of social trust.For the second question, the opposite applies.
Through a consideration of existing literature, it can be found that there is a close logical connection between individual residential activities and tourism activities in time and space [26][27][28].Regarding geographical factors, residential activities are those conducted by an individual in a specific space for a long period of time, while tourism activities are the activities of an individual for a short period of time [29][30][31].In terms of time, residential activities may last as long as several years or decades, while tourism activities may last only for several days.In terms of space, residential activities are concentrated in an area defined by homes and workplaces and vary in size depending on the size of the city.Tourism activities refer to leisure activities at least 75 km away from a person's home.From the perspective of the human-land relationship, residential activities and tourism activities repeat themselves alternately in the life of an individual.
Both residential and tourism activities have subtle effects on mentality and behaviormost significantly the level of individual social trust.Many studies have found that an individual's geographical environment and place of residence can influence their social trust, especially the latitude [32][33][34][35][36].For instance, the difference in climate at different latitudes has a direct influence on the mentality and behavior of an individual, but also an indirect influence through social and cultural factors such as agriculture, economy, and effect on health [37][38][39].Many studies in the field of tourism have also found that tourism activities have an enduring and stable influence on the mentality and behavior of an individual.For example, researchers have found that tourism activities can not only drive economic growth and improve quality of life but also reinforce positive emotions and enhance national identity [39][40][41][42].Promoting the deep involvement of tourism activities in national social governance has become a major trend in recent years.
For this study, individual residential and tourism activities are independent of each other but are connected in time and space, so cannot be simply separated.As regards their differences, tourism activities have more diverse temporal and spatial representations because of different travel times and destination choices.They also have strong situational attributes because they are not based in an individual's area of residence [31,43].For these reasons, it is impossible to directly draw cross-situational inferences about the mentality and behavior of individuals when they are tourists.For their connection, human mentality and behavior are consistent and durable.Although residential and tourism activities are relatively independent in time and space, individual mentality and behavior are connected in these two situations, with relative yet non-absolute inertia and stability [26][27][28].
In summary, the study of the law of individual mentality and behavior needs to take the situationality of residential and tourism activities into consideration, as simply separating them is unreasonable and inaccurate.To better study the significant theoretical problem of the factors and mechanisms influencing public social trust, this study investigated the interacting effects of residential and tourism activities on public social trust, based on a review of existing independent research on residential and tourism activities.

Geographical Environment and Social Trust
In recent years, the research direction of latitudinal psychology has received increasing attention.Researchers are beginning to realize that the natural environment not only affects an individual's physical state but also has diverse effects on their psychological state.In particular, temperature, agriculture, and pathogen transmission in their geographical environment have been found to significantly affect an individual's psychological state [39].
2.1.1.Clash (Class, Aggregation, and Self-Control in Humans) Theory The primary natural environmental difference between different latitudes is their climate.Latitude directly influences the sunlight in different areas, leading to differences in local temperature and other aspects of climate.Researchers hold that climate is an important environmental factor that influences individual social trust [33,34,38,[44][45][46].The clash theory proposed by Van Lange et al. [39] suggests that colder winters and greater seasonal changes in temperature in high latitudes require individuals to make a more thorough annual plan.For example, people will store food and fuel for winter in advance.Thus, individuals need to employ a long-term and reasonable goal-oriented life strategy.In contrast, individuals who live in areas with more comfortable temperatures and smaller temperature differences throughout the year will pay more attention to the present in their lives and do not need to plan and prepare ahead for the rest of the year.As a result, they habitually pay less attention to self-control.This short-term, goal-oriented life strategy and the habitual lack of self-control will give rise to a more aggressive and violent social climate [33,34].Consistent with the findings of clash theory, numerous studies have found that intra-and extra-group hostility, violent crimes, family conflicts, press suppression, political oppression, and legal discrimination reach their peaks near the equator and gradually decrease in higher latitudes [47][48][49].

Rice Theory
Climate conditions in different latitudes also result in differences in agriculture.In China, as the latitude increases, the rice-growing ratio shows relatively regular changesmore crops, such as wheat, are cultivated in the north, and more rice is planted in the south.The difference in farming also influences the level of social trust of individuals in different areas.The rice theory proposed by Talhelm et al. [50].suggests that, historically, rice-growing communities have stronger reciprocity in life and work than wheat-growing communities.To manage the irrigation network, the residents of rice-growing communities must coordinate the use of water and share infrastructure.This has generated a social culture in which people are mutually dependent on a close-knit social network [51,52].Therefore, the closeness of community relations has become a major sociocultural difference between residents in rice-and wheat-growing areas [53][54][55][56][57].

Pathogen Stress Theory
Different latitudes also have different epidemic infection rates because of their climates.The infection rate of epidemics, such as influenza, varies significantly by latitude.Over a long period, the incidence of epidemics has a significant influence on the level of social trust of residents.Pathogen stress theory suggests that diseases transmitted between humans manifest in the culture as, for example, collectivism, exclusivity, and ethnocentrism [58,59].The reason behind this phenomenon is that residents in areas with high levels of pathogens try to reduce the risk of infection by reducing social interaction with strangers.Over time, such lifestyle habits may have a subtle impact on their social trust.The reason behind this phenomenon is that less social interaction in areas with a higher level of pathogen stress helps avoid infections by reducing contacts and interactions with strangers, and vice versa.

Economic Development and Social Trust
The level of economic development is a comprehensive concept, which is often uniformly measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) index.The GDP index includes various measurement methods, such as regional and per-capita GDP.Because China is a collectivist country, many enterprises are wholly controlled by the government.Therefore, we believe that using the per-capita GDP indicator is more suitable for conducting individual-level research.
The relative economic development of areas in China is also conditioned by geographical environmental factors.For example, the overall population density in the southeast is greater than in the northwest, which may be related to the comfort provided by the local climate [60].However, over the past 40 years, coastal areas have been substantially ahead of inland areas in terms of economic development because of their transport and other advantages conferred by reforms, a policy of opening up and other major national strategies.Both the direct effects of the climate and the indirect effects of population density and transport exert a comprehensive influence on economic development.
Differences in economic development influence the level of public social trust, but it is notable that the relationship between economic growth and social trust is more complicated than the other three relationships mentioned above.This is shown in inconsistencies between the findings of existing studies.For instance, many Western studies have suggested that economic development can have a positive influence on the social trust of local residents [61][62][63][64].This is because a higher economic level can help individuals solve more difficulties in life and reduce their sensitivity to conflicts of social interest.As a result, they maintain a more peaceful relationship with others and a higher level of social trust.
However, studies against the cultural background of China are not consistent with these findings.A series of studies conducted by Xin and Liu [65] and Z. Xin and S. Xin [66] found that faster economic growth had a negative influence on the social trust of local residents.A higher degree of marketization led to more emphasis on profit, which enhanced the profit-seeking nature of individual decision-making, more selfish behavior, and less social trust [67].While these findings may contradict each other, economic development is undoubtedly an important factor and, for this reason, we have given full consideration to the possible effects of this factor in our study.

Tourism Activities and Social Trust 2.3.1. Social Exchange Theory
Social exchange theory is currently one of the most important theoretical frameworks used worldwide to interpret the relationship between tourism activities and social trust [68][69][70].From the perspective of social exchange theory, social interaction occurs when tourists exchange information, thoughts, and other resources in a shared space with local residents or other tourists [71][72][73].This social interaction is the foundation of social exchange, and the interaction between residents and tourists is likely to offer an opportunity for a beneficial and gratifying exchange [73][74][75][76][77][78][79].
In general, social exchange in tourism activities includes multiple forms of resource exchange: physical, social, and psychological [80][81][82].Tourism activities allow the social exchange of these three kinds of resources between tourists and residents, which lays a key foundation for increasing their level of social trust.Research carried out by Stolle et al. suggests that social trust is developed largely through moderately intensive social contact with different individuals [12,[83][84][85][86]. Compared with the daily interactions among residents, tourism activities can accelerate the development of transitional social ties.Tourism activities serve as a social platform for strangers to interact with each other.Tourists benefit from the kindness of strangers in social interactions.
These seemingly transient interactions constitute the tourist experience, and in the long run, may have a profound influence on tourists and host communities [78,79,[87][88][89].Hence, social interactions in tourism activities are more favorable for increasing the level of social trust of residents in the tourist-generating areas and destinations.
In recent years, a growing number of studies have noticed that tourism activities not only accelerate economic growth but also play a pivotal and positive role in social governance.For example, experimental research performed by Zhou [90] found that hitchhiking remarkably enhanced the level of social trust of tourists.Zhou [90] argued that the reason behind this phenomenon was that social interaction was an important part of the hitchhiker experience since they left their familiar social environment and tried to communicate with strangers.Hitchhikers could experience strong reciprocity and gratitude through social interactions with people who offered them help and showed them kindness, and so showed a higher level of social trust and willingness to engage in pro-social behavior.Research performed by Strzelecka and Okulicz-Kozaryn [91] in a large-scale social survey also fully supported the social exchange theory, finding a positive correlation between the growth of tourism in European destinations and the social trust of the residents.

Embodied Cognition Theory
Social exchange theory relates to human interactions in tourism activities and interprets the direct effects of tourism activities on individual social trust.Embodied cognition theory, in contrast, starts from the perspective of person-land interaction in tourism activities and explains the indirect effects of tourism activities on individual social trust.Embodied cognition theory argues that the basic reason that tourism can exert a positive influence on individual social trust is that the environment can influence individual psychology and individual behavior [92][93][94].The impact of the environment on an individual's life shows two sides, that is, some environments may have a positive impact on an individual, while some environments may have a negative impact [95][96][97].
In terms of the positive aspects, various researchers found that more exposure to the natural environment can significantly enhance the quality of life, well-being, and mental health of individuals [98][99][100][101][102][103].This is because the characteristics of the natural environment can have a strong impact on the positive mental state of an individual [104][105][106][107][108]. A large number of studies have revealed the physiological basis for this phenomenon in depth.Their research found that the natural environment and a pleasant sensory experience stimulate low-frequency alpha rhythms in the frontal lobe of the brain, reflecting a lower level of stress in the body and a state of relaxation and calm [103,109,110].
In terms of the negative aspects, staying in the city environment where one lives and works hinders an individual from maintaining a positive mental and physical state [111,112].Halonen et al. [113].and Orban et al. [114] found that industrial smells and noise around urban buildings exerted a negative influence on the emotional state and mental health of individuals.Research carried out by Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky [115] also found that air pollution affected positive emotions and had a negative impact on individual well-being.Zheng, Wang, Sun, Zhang, and Kahn [116] suggested that a happy mood implied in the messages posted on social media declined significantly with the rise of PM2.5.Air pollution affects the expression of positive emotions and evokes more negative emotions, the most obvious one being anxiety.This is largely because air pollution has long been closely related to death anxiety, as the anxiety induced by air pollution resembles death anxiety [117,118].
Generally speaking, most tourism activities are based on moving from the cities or villages where people live and work to natural or cultural scenic spots that are more beautiful and comfortable.Tourists can temporarily escape the negative effects of their usual environment and also benefit from the restorative and positive effects of the natural environment.The facilitation effect of tourism activities on the emotions, well-being, quality of life, and mental health of individuals is the basis for the establishment of sound social trust.

Research Aims and Hypotheses
In summary, from the perspective of the relationship between the geographic environment and social trust, and the relationship between tourism activities and social trust, the long-term environment determines the mentality and behavior of people, whereas the short-term environment changes their mentality and behavior.It is notable that, on the one hand, individual behavior research is highly situational, which means cross-situational inferences cannot be drawn in relatively independent situations and specific environments.On the other hand, individual behavior is also continuous-that is, the behavioral stability of an individual will not be simply interrupted by the situation in which the individual finds themself.Given that the living environment and tourism environment are the two fundamental forms of their human-land relationship, they are connected across time and space and are part of the life-long development of an individual.They both influence an individual's social trust.Individual behavior is characterized by both situationality and continuity.There is a complex interaction between tourism activities and the geographical environment.Therefore, it is necessary to explore the interaction mechanism between tourism activities, geographical environment, and human life [119].
Especially for China, its land area is much larger and its geographical environment is more diverse.Therefore, in the same political system and cultural environment, geography may have a more diverse influence on public psychology.In addition, tourism activities, as one of the most important large-scale spatial activities for the public, are also very popular in China.According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the number of domestic tourists received by each province this year reached 4.891 billion.Therefore, taking Chinese people as the research object will be more helpful in exploring how geographical environment factors and tourism activities have an interacting impact on individual psychology.
It should be noted that the impact of tourism activities includes both the impact of receiving tourists on local residents and the impact of their own travel.The former can be evaluated by the tourist reception in the destination, which means that the comprehensive statistics of local hotels, scenic spots, and transportation can roughly estimate the number of local tourists received.But the latter is often difficult to calculate.The China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) calculates the travel index of residents in various regions of the country every year through reverse tracing and random sampling surveys of tourist destinations.China Tourism Academy pointed out that this index is currently the only statistical basis that can relatively accurately evaluate the level of travel among residents in various regions (https://www.ctaweb.org.cn/cta/jgzz/202103/2ff33e8325264f0d88469f85f12a0dea.shtml;accessed on 19 May 2023).It is important to point out that the index is hierarchical data, not continuous data.
Based on this, this study explored whether the long-term influence of the geographical environment and the short-term influence of tourism activities would produce stable interactive effects on the level of public social trust.The influence of tourism activities on the social culture of different areas takes two specific forms-receiving tourists and supplying tourists.Our question was whether the influencing mechanism of these interactive effects on the public social trust in tourist destinations is consistent with the influencing mechanism of the interactive effects on the public social trust in tourist origin.Based on the aforesaid theoretical basis, this study proposes the following hypotheses: H1a. Temperature and tourist reception affect the level of social trust of the people in a tourist destination.
H1b. Temperature and tourist supply affect the level of social trust in an area from which tourists originate.
H2a. Rice-growing and tourist reception affect the level of social trust in a tourist destination.
H2b. Rice-growing and tourist supply affect the level of social trust in an area from which tourists originate.
H3a. Pathogen stress and tourist reception affect the level of social trust in a tourist destination.
H3b. Pathogen stress and tourist supply affect the level of social trust in an area from which tourists originate.

H4a. Economic development and tourist reception affect the level of social trust in a tourist destination.
H4b. Economic development and tourist supply affect the level of social trust in an area from which tourists originate.

Data Source and Sample
Data on individual respondents used in this study are from 2017 data of the China General Social Survey Database (CGSS; http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn;accessed on 3 June 2023).The database was built by the country and is the largest and highest-level social general survey database in China for now.This database was established in 2000 and is updated every 3-5 years.The data used in this study were just released in 2020, and are the latest CGSS data of 2017.The CGSS Database has been used by a great number of researches owing to its numerous merits, such as rigorous sampling and wide coverage, and has shown good results.CGSS data of 2017 used in this study included a total of 12,482 respondents, their province, gender, age, educational level, and economic income are shown in Table A1 (Appendix A).

Social Trust
The variable of the level of public social trust is calculated by the two items of the social trust dimension in a CGSS scale of 2017 (http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/info/1014/1019.htm;accessed on 3 June 2023).The CGSS project is a national academic research survey conducted with the support of special funds from the Chinese government.The CGSS scale is compiled by the China Survey and Data Center, Renmin University of China.This scale consists of 783 questions, which cover a large number of research contents such as individual basic demographic variables and social psychological variables.The CGSS annual data used in the current study was collected by 40 universities across the country, and the whole research process took seven months.CGSS is open for free use by all social science researchers in China.As of the latest statistics, CGSS data has supported 2470 research publications, including 355 papers in international English journals (http://cgss.ruc.edu.cn/info/1014/1018.htm;accessed on 12 June 2023).The current study uses data from the Social Trust Scale.The scale consists of two items: (1) In general, do you agree that the vast majority of people in this society are trustworthy?(2) In general, do you agree that other people in this society will try to take advantage of you if you are careless?Item 2 is a reverse score question.The total score of these two questions represents the level of social trust of the respondents [24,25].

Temperature
The variable of temperature is based on the calculation model of temperature data adopted in a study by Vliert [39].This study first collected the annual average temperature of different provinces in China from 1996 to 2017 from the Yearbook Database of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/;accessed on 12 June 2023) and then calculated the difference between the annual average temperature of different provinces and 22 • -the temperature most suitable for humans to live (see Table A2).The absolute value of the difference represents the degree to which the temperature throughout the year is suitable for local residents to live.The smaller the absolute value, the higher the temperature suitability, and vice versa.

Rice-Growing Areas
The variable of rice-growing is based on the encoding model used in research carried out by Talhelm et al. [50] This study first collected data on rice-, wheat-, and corn-growing areas in Chinese provinces from 1996 to 2017 from the Yearbook Database of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/;accessed on 12 June 2023), and then obtained the rice-growing ratios of different places by calculating the rice-growing area/(wheat-growing area + corn growing area; see Tables A3-A5; see the trend chart in Figure 1).According to the grouping method used by Talhelm et al. [50], the area where the growing ratio was higher than 1 was the rice-growing area, whereas the area where the growing ratio was lower than 1 was the wheat-growing area.

Pathogen Stress
The variable of pathogen stress is based on the prevalence of influenza in various areas.As the most typical and common infectious disease in the world, influenza extensively affects the daily lives of people.Hence, this study collected data on the prevalence of influenza in different provinces from 2004 to 2017 from the National Public Health Science Database of the China Population and Health Scientific Data Sharing Platform (https: //www.phsciencedata.cn/Share/index.jsp;accessed on 17 June 2023; see Table A6; see Figure 1).The averages of these data reflect the chronic pathogen stress of people in different places.

Economic Development Level
The economic development level is measured through data on traditional per-capita GDP.The data are also from data on the average per-capita GDP of different provinces in China from 1996 to 2017 recorded in the Yearbook Database of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/;accessed on 17 June 2023; see Table A7; see Figure 1).These figures reflect the differences between different places in the level of economic development.

Level of Tourist Reception
According to the statistical data from the China Tourism Yearbook (see Table A8; see Figure 1), this study uses the average numbers of tourists received by various provinces from 2013 to 2017 to signify the tourist reception level of each province.

Level of Tourist Supply
The level of tourist supply is denoted by the travel index of the residents of each province, which is calculated through annual big data related to tourism of the same year from the China National Tourism Administration (see Table A9; see Figure 1).The higher the index, the more trips are taken by the residents in this province.The variable uses the average data from 2013 to 2017 as the indicator of the level of tourist supply in each province.
Data on social trust as a dependent variable are from the 2017 CGSS Database.Data on temperature, rice-growing, and economic development as independent variables are the averages from 1996 to 2017, pathogen stress data are from 2004 to 2017.The reason for this is that we aimed to discuss the long-term effects of the living environment on the mentality of people on the one hand, but standardized and authoritative data exist only from 1996 and 2004, respectively, when China established a methodical National Statistical Yearbook System and National Public Health Science Database.Different from the aforesaid independent variables, tourism activities exert short-and medium-term effects rather than the long-term effects of residential activities.Therefore, this study used the averages over more recent years (2013 to 2017) as the indicators of tourist reception level and tourist supply level.

Results
All statistical analyses in this study were carried out with the use of SPSS 26.0.The dependent variable of public social trust is significantly positively correlated with the level of tourist reception, significantly negatively correlated with the level of pathogen stress, and not significantly correlated with other independent variables.In addition, the specific relationships between other independent variables are shown in Table 1.The results of current hypothesis testing (Table 2) show that the interaction between the level of tourist reception and temperature is insignificant, and the interaction between the level of tourist supply and temperature is also insignificant.This result does not support hypotheses H1a and H1b.In other hypothesis tests, the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of rice-growing, the interaction between the level of tourist supply and pathogen stress, and the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of economic development are significant.These results support H2a, H3b, and H4a.However, H2b, H3a, and H4b, are not supported by the data.Figure 2 shows that in the interaction between the level of tourist supply and the level of rice-growing, the upward trend of rice-growing areas is significantly greater than that for wheat-and corn-growing areas; in the interaction between the level of tourist reception and pathogen stress (Figure 3), the slope of the group with a larger number of tourists is lower than that of the group with a smaller number of tourists; and in the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of economic development (Figure 4), the slope of the low per-capita GDP group is significantly higher than that of the high per-capita GDP group.
of tourist reception, significantly negatively correlated with the level of pathogen stress, and not significantly correlated with other independent variables.In addition, the specific relationships between other independent variables are shown in Table 1.The results of current hypothesis testing (Table 2) show that the interaction between the level of tourist reception and temperature is insignificant, and the interaction between the level of tourist supply and temperature is also insignificant.This result does not support hypotheses H1a and H1b.In other hypothesis tests, the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of rice-growing, the interaction between the level of tourist supply and pathogen stress, and the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of economic development are significant.These results support H2a, H3b, and H4a.However, H2b, H3a, and H4b, are not supported by the data.Figure 2 shows that in the interaction between the level of tourist supply and the level of rice-growing, the upward trend of rice-growing areas is significantly greater than that for wheat-and corn-growing areas; in the interaction between the level of tourist reception and pathogen stress (Figure 3), the slope of the group with a larger number of tourists is lower than that of the group with a smaller number of tourists; and in the interaction between the level of tourist reception and the level of economic development (Figure 4), the slope of the low per-capita GDP group is significantly higher than that of the high per-capita GDP group.

Discussion
Our analysis shows that public social trust is significantly correlated with the level of local tourist reception but is not directly connected with the level of tourist supply.For tourism activities, receiving and supplying tourists have different effects on local social culture.Receiving tourists has a direct effect with the larger the number of tourists received in an area, the higher the level of public social trust.Although supplying tourists does not have direct effects on the level of social trust of the local residents, it may have indirect effects by moderating the intensity of the influence of other factors on social trust.Therefore, this study also concentrates on testing and comparing how the level of social trust is influenced by residents in destinations and tourist-generating areas, respectively.We did not find a significant correlation between temperature and the level of social trust of local residents.This is inconsistent with previous findings [34,35,38,45,46].We also found that there was no interaction between temperature and the level of tourist reception or the level of tourist supply.This result indicates that temperature does not exert any direct influence on public social trust nor has an indirect influence on it together with tourism activities.In our opinion, the inconsistency between findings based on different cultures may be caused by regional factors.A major difference between this study and previous studies is that we explored the effects on Chinese people.As one of the few socialist countries in the world, China is different from other countries in many ways.Since the founding of New China, the country has developed a residential guarantee strategy of unified heat supply for 4-6 months every year in most areas north of the Qinling Mountains, and supplies heat or stops it according to the specific temperature changes in different provinces each year.Subsidized by central financing, the heating fee for each household is only 5.6 yuan/square meter/month.As a result, the cost of heating is not an economic burden and temperature-induced survival pressures do not exist.Therefore, temperature, has no further influence on the social trust of the local residents, nor will it further interact with tourism activities to have an impact.
Through testing the interaction between rice-growing and tourist reception level or tourist supply level, we found that, on one hand, rice-growing did not show a significant correlation with the social trust level of local residents.On the other hand, we found that the rice-growing ratio and the level of tourist reception have interacting effects on the social trust of the local residents.Although an increase in the number of tourists received helps boost the social trust of local residents, this influence is not consistent in all parts of the country, as it is moderated by the farming culture stressed in the rice theory.Specifically, the abovementioned interacting effects are that for the people in the wheat and corn-growing areas with a low rice-growing ratio, tourist reception activities can boost the level of public social trust more significantly.This influence is weak in rice-growing areas with a high ricegrowing ratio.In other words, for the same level of tourist reception activities, its effect of improving social trust in wheat-growing areas is markedly better than that in rice-growing areas.The possible reason behind this phenomenon is that, according to the rice theory, the rice-growing culture itself shapes a social culture of closer local community ties, whereas the wheat-growing culture gives rise to weak distant-and extra-community relations.Therefore, compared with the positive effects of the rice-growing culture, the effects of wheat-growing activities on the society, culture, and mentality of the local residents are slightly negative and have greater potential for improvement.This finding is to some extent consistent with previous studies [50 -56].We further found that, on the basis of traditional rice theory, this study revealed two new social phenomena: first, the sociocultural impact of rice-growing activities has a direct and independent impact (as found in previous studies), as well as an indirect impact.Our study found that the rice-growing ratio moderates the influence of the level of tourist reception on the social trust of the local residents; second, the rice-growing ratio has interacting effects only with the level of tourist reception and has no interacting effect with the level of tourist supply.
Our findings on the influence of pathogen stress and tourism activities on public social trust found a close relationship between the level of pathogen stress and the social trust level of local residents.This result is completely consistent with the prediction of the pathogen stress theory [58,59], in that the incidence of epidemics in the place of residence not only influences the health of people, but also influences the level of social trust.In addition, we found that pathogen stress can directly influence public social trust as well as exert interacting effects on the level of tourist supply.Although pathogen stress has a negative influence on public social trust, this influence varies in different areas.This negative influence is weaker in areas with a higher level of tourist supply and is stronger in areas with a lower level of tourist supply.This shows that tourism activities can mitigate the negative influence caused by pathogen stress.It is worth mentioning that, at present, this influence is only found in tourist-generating areas, not in destinations.This also suggests that transporting tourists and receiving tourists have different influences on local society and culture.
We also found that there are interacting effects of economic development level and tourism activities on public social trust.We did not find a direct connection between the level of local economic development and the level of public social trust in the correlation analysis.However, we found that the level of economic development moderated the influence of the level of tourist reception on the social trust of local residents.In other words, it does not come into play independently but rather interacts with tourism activities to influence public social trust.This interaction is manifested in the fact that in more economically developed areas with lower per-capita GDP, tourist reception activities had a greater influence on improving the social trust level of the local residents.These positive effects also existed in economically developed areas with higher per-capita GDP, but the level was lower.Irrespective of the level of economic development of an area, tourist reception activities can exert a high level of positive effects on local society and culture.A more important finding of this study was that, for less economically developed areas, actively developing tourism is a strategy that brings double benefits.It stimulates the growth of the local economy and facilitates the improvement of social trust.

Theoretical Contribution
This study brings a new way of thinking to theories in the field in that it explores the interacting effects of geographical environmental factors in residential activities and tourism activities on public social trust.It reveals the differentiated influence of these interacting effects on the social trust of residents in destinations and tourist-generating areas in more depth.China covers a vast territory with a large population.The findings of this study have added value to previous studies on the relationships between geographical environment, tourism activities, and public social trust, and provided cultural research evidence from China.The study has also, for the first time, revealed interacting effect mechanisms on public social trust from the perspective of the cross-over study of geographical environment and tourism activities.In view of the multifold advantages of this study, including wide sampling distribution, highly rigorous sampling, and the reasoned choice of variables and calculation methods, the findings are highly representative and valuable.In addition, the findings of this study have certain social and practical significance.In the current era, global epidemics are frequent, which can have a negative impact on interactions between cities.Therefore, it is important for countries around the world to recover tourism after every pandemic.This significance is not limited to the contribution of tourism to the national economy, but more importantly, to the direct and indirect enhancement of public social trust.Helping the public rebuild social trust does more good for the recovery of the market economy, for accelerating the restoration of normal social order, and for exerting a more extensive, positive, and persistent influence.In brief, this study hopes to urge the country to attach more importance to tourism development and research in the field of tourism through the abovementioned findings, thus helping tourism research contribute to the improvement of national social governance in a more effective way.

Limitations and Future Research Directions
Although current research focuses on promoting the development of existing theories, it still has the following limitations: (1) the current research is still a variable-centered research rather than an individual-centered research.Therefore, there is a lack of exploration of deeper individual-level characteristics; (2) the samples for the current study were all from China.Although to a certain extent, this avoids the influence of political system and cultural background, the current conclusions also lack a cross-cultural adaptability test; (3) the current study lacks evidence of long-term longitudinal tracking data.Although it is difficult to carry out, longitudinal research plays an important role in delving deeper into the interacting impact mechanism of geographical environment and tourism activities on public social trust.We believe that this is also an urgent need to be carried out in the future.

Conclusions
The main conclusion drawn by this study includes the following aspects: (1) the direct effect of pathogen stress and tourism activities on public social trust is much higher than that of temperature, rice-growing, and economic development; (2) geographical environment and tourism activities have interacting effects on public social trust.This influencing mechanism is specifically manifested as rice-growing and tourist reception levels can have interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in a tourist destination.That is to say, for the people in the wheat-and corn-growing areas with a low rice-growing ratio, tourist reception activities can boost the level of public social trust more significantly; (3) pathogen stress and tourist supply level can exert interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in an area from which tourists originate.In areas with a higher level of tourist supply, this negative influence of pathogen stress is weaker; (4) economic development and tourist reception can have interacting effects on the social trust of the residents in a tourist destination.This interaction is that in more economically developed areas with lower per-capita GDP, tourist reception activities had a greater influence on improving the public social trust.Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement:
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A
Appendix A in this study includes Tables A1-A9.

30 Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Comparative trend chart of the variables in the study by province.(a) Comparative trend chart of rice planting area in each province from 1996 to 2017.Unit: thousands of hectares.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. The interaction between tourist reception and rice-growing on social trust.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. The interaction between tourist reception and rice-growing on social trust.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The interaction between pathogen stress and tourist supply on social trust.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The interaction between tourist reception and economic development on social trust.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The interaction between pathogen stress and tourist supply on social trust.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The interaction between pathogen stress and tourist supply on social trust.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The interaction between tourist reception and economic development on social trust.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The interaction between tourist reception and economic development on social trust.

Author Contributions:
Conceptualization, Y.G. and Y.L.; methodology, Y.L.; formal analysis, Y.L.; data curation, Y.G. and Y.L.; writing-original draft preparation, Y.G.; writing-review and editing, Z.Z., Y.M. and Y.L.; supervision, Z.Z., P.H. and Y.L.All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 42201245); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2022M711998, 2023T160403); the Science and Technology Plan Key Research and Development Project of Shaanxi Province (grant number 2023-YBSF-029, 2021SF-481); and Shaanxi Teacher Development Research Institute "Teacher Development Research Project" (Youth) (grant number SJS2022ZQ010).Institutional Review Board Statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of Shaanxi Normal University (Number: HR2023-03-010; Date: 7 March 2023).

Table 1 .
Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Table 1 .
Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Table A1 .
Demographic information of participants.

Table A2 .
The average temperature of each province from 1996 to 2017 (unit: • C).

Table A3 .
Rice planting area in each province from 1996 to 2017 (unit: thousands of hectares).

Table A4 .
Wheat planting area in each province from 1996 to 2017 (unit: thousands of hectares).

Table A6 .
The number and incidence of influenza in each province from 2004 to 2017 (unit: thousands of hectares).

Table A7 .
Per capita GDP of each province from 1996 to 2017 (unit: yuan).

Table A8 .
The number of domestic tourists received by each province from 2013 to 2017 (unit: 100 million person-times).

Table A9 .
Travel index of each province in 2013-2017.