The influence of cognitive value and role perception on community residents' willingness to participate in age-friendly renovations.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to examine how cognitive value and role perception influence residents' willingness to participate in age-friendly community renovations, and to test a dual mediation model in which community attachment and institutional trust serve as parallel mediators.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey design was employed, with data collected from 595 residents across several representative communities in a city in Jiangsu Province, China. Data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and the PROCESS macro. Multiple linear regression and Bootstrapping methods were applied to test the hypothesized relationships.

RESULTS

Significant positive correlations were found among cognitive value, role perception, community attachment, institutional trust, and participation willingness. Multiple linear regression indicated that cognitive value, role perception, community attachment, and institutional trust significantly predicted participation willingness (F = 25.81, P < 0.001, R 2 = 0.284). Furthermore, community attachment and institutional trust served as significant mediators in the relationships between cognitive value and participation willingness and role perception and participation willingness, with indirect effect values of 0.108 (95% Bootstrap CI: 0.057, 0.158) and 0.145 (95% Bootstrap CI: 0.093, 0.201), respectively.

CONCLUSION

The findings suggest that policymakers prioritize enhancing residents' cognitive value and role perception while simultaneously strengthening community attachment and institutional trust, thereby effectively stimulating participation willingness and promoting the sustainable development of age-friendly community renovations. Such strategies satisfy residents' psychological needs for meaning, belongingness, and security, facilitating policy goal internalization and achieving synergy between external guidance and internal motivation.