This research employed the Stimulus-Organism-Respond (S-O-R) theory to examine the effects of pull and push factors on individuals’ intention to study abroad through the mechanisms of psychological and cognitive motivations. Specifically, the study conceptualizes prospect opportunities as push factors and embeddedness as pull factors, which may affect Thai people’s intention to study abroad through the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation and the moderating effect of cultural intelligence. Research results based on a sample of 321 respondents, who have never studied higher degree abroad and are currently working for a period of time, showed that job, social, and family embeddedness have negative effects, both direct and indirect, while career opportunity and quality of living exert positive effects, both direct and indirect, on intention to study abroad, through the mediation of intrinsic motivation. Moreover, cultural intelligence plays a positive moderating effect on the relationships between both career opportunity and education quality and intrinsic motivation.
This study advances the line of studying abroad research by applying the S-O-R theory to identify critical mechanisms through which various aspects of push-pull factors can impact individual’s intention to study abroad.

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