The Stranger Effect in Tourism: A Constructivist Grounded Theory of Inner Co-Creation and Eudaimonic Transformation

This study develops a substantive theory explaining how brief encounters with unfamiliar fellow tourists can trigger meaningful psychological change. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory and interviews with 25 Vietnamese tourists, the study identifies a four-stage process termed the stranger effect. The process begins with safe unfamiliarity, where anonymity and the suspension of everyday roles create a liminal relational space that lowers social defensiveness. Within this context, emotional resonance emerges through rapid affective attunement, enabling strangers to recognize and respond to each other’s emotional states. This alignment facilitates inner co-creation, a reflexive dialogue through which individuals collaboratively reinterpret personal concerns and life narratives. These insights are integrated into eudaimonic transformation, expressed through cognitive reframing, self-understanding, and behavioral change. By theorizing how transformation can arise from brief travel encounters, the study reconceptualizes stranger interactions as catalysts of intersubjective meaning-making and introduces inner co-creation as a novel form of value co-creation in tourism.