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Despite the widespread implementation of app-based fitness policies in Chinese universities, student noncompliance (e.g., proxy-running) remains a prevalent issue, undermining the policy goal of improving student health. This practical dilemma highlights a critical theoretical gap: while policy endorsement is theorized to be crucial, extant literature often conflates it with general policy attitudes, obscuring its unique identity-based mechanism grounded in value congruence. To address this theory-practice divide, t his study introduces and tests the concept of identity-congruence policy endorsement—a psychological state arising from perceived alignment between policy mandates and self-identity-that is, an individual's internalized system of values, beliefs, and group affiliations. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior and the ABC model of attitudes, we posit a cognitive mediation model wherein this endorsement triggers compliance intention primarily through cognitive appraisal rather than affective appeal. The aim is to provide an evidence-based psychological account for the compliance problem and offer actionable insights for optimizing policy design. A cross-sectional survey of 448 Chinese medical students—a high-cognition population—was analyzed via structural equation modeling. The results revealed that endorsement strongly predicted cognitive attitude (β = 0.901, P < 0.001) but weakly impacted affective attitude (β = 0.225, P < 0.001). Crucially, while cognitive attitude significantly drove compliance intention (β = 0.444, P < 0.001), affective attitude showed no effect. Furthermore, the link between endorsement and intention was fully mediated by cognitive attitude. This indicates that for high-cognition individuals, compliance is a deliberative process driven by cognitive appraisal rather than affective appeal. Consequently, policy optimization should prioritize enhancing cognitive legitimacy through evidence-based parameter design, simplifying compliance procedures, and employing nudge theory to leverage cognitive biases. This study advances digital governance literature by delineating the cognitive mechanism of policy compliance, with implications extending beyond the Chinese context. • Policy endorsement positively predicts compliance intention fully through cognitive attitude, not affective attitude. • For high-cognition students, compliance intention is driven by cognitive attitude, not emotional appeal. • The critical endorsement-to-compliance path runs through cognition, not affection, refuting direct influence models. • A vast intention-behavior gap (64.8 % vs. 5.7 %) reveals that intending to comply is not the same as doing so.
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