Kristina M. Slagle

The Role of Affect in Public Support and Opposition to Wolf Management

Individuals process information through two systems: the experiential system, containing affect and emotion, and the analytic system, containing logic and normative rules. Both are involved in decision making, and expected to help explain choices to support or oppose wildlife-related policies. In the present study, an Internet survey of motivated, informed individuals is used to investigate the role of both systems in wolf recovery policy choices. Integral affect measures serve as the experiential component in our model, while objective knowledge and beliefs about outcomes of wolf recovery serve as the analytic component. Results indicate that affect has a greater effect than knowledge on beliefs, and is more important for explaining intentions to oppose than to support wolf recovery. Knowledge of differences in information processing between those that support versus oppose wolf recovery allows managers to design outreach that motivates greater analytic processing, potentially mitigating the effects of experiential processing.

Assessing Sustainability Knowledge of a Student Population: Developing a Tool to Measure Knowledge in the Environmental, Economic, and Social Domains

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to present a tool for assessing the sustainability knowledge of an undergraduate population. Design/methodology/approach – Multiple-choice questions were developed through soliciting expert input, focus groups, pilot testing, distribution via a large-scale online survey and analysis using item response theory. Findings – The final assessment consists of 16 questions from the environmental, economic and social domains, covering foundational concepts within the topic of sustainability. Research limitations/implications – This assessment represents an initial effort to quantify knowledge of the broad and abstract concept of sustainability. The authors plan to continue refining these questions to better differentiate between students with higher levels of knowledge and to replace those with answers that may change over time. Practical implications – With knowledge of sustainability concepts becoming increasingly included in institution-wide learning objectives, there i...

Assessing Tolerance for Wildlife: Clarifying Relations Between Concepts and Measures

Two parallel lines of inquiry, tolerance for and acceptance of wildlife populations, have arisen in the applied literature on wildlife conservation to assess probability of successfully establishing or increasing populations of controversial species. Neither of these lines is well grounded in social science theory, and diverse measures have been employed to assess tolerance, which inhibits comparability across studies. We empirically tested behavioral measures of tolerance against self-reports of previous policy-relevant behavior and behavioral intentions. Both composite behavioral measures were strongly correlated (r > .70) with two attitudinal measures of tolerance commonly employed in the literature. The strong correlation between attitudinal and behavioral measures suggests existing attitudinal measures represent valid, parsimonious measures of tolerance that may be useful when behavioral measures are too cumbersome or misreporting of behavior is anticipated. Our results demonstrate how behavioral measures of tolerance provide additional, useful information beyond general attitudinal measures.

Attitudes toward predator control in the United States: 1995 and 2014

Predator control policies in the United States shifted in the latter half of the 20th century, largely in response to public outcry. However, few studies have assessed attitudes toward predator control at the national level. We replicated measures from a 1995 study that assessed attitudes toward predator management in the United States. We sought to determine if public support for predator management and perceptions of the humaneness of specific management practices changed over the past 2 decades. A web-based questionnaire was used to survey a representative sample of United States residents. The survey instrument contained items designed to assess attitudes toward predator management in general and the humaneness of specific predator management practices (lethal and nonlethal). We found relatively minor shifts in attitudes toward predator management, but many of the management practices assessed were rated significantly less humane than in the previous survey. Respondents were generally supportive of predator management aimed at losses of agricultural or private property; however, nonlethal methods were perceived to be far more humane than lethal methods. Our findings suggest that the public is generally supportive of predator control, but increasingly skeptical of the methods employed in control actions.

Is sustainability knowledge half the battle?: An examination of sustainability knowledge, attitudes, norms, and efficacy to understand sustainable behaviours

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of sustainability knowledge to pro-environmental behaviour. A common misperception is that unsustainable behaviours are largely driven by a lack of knowledge of the underlying societal costs and the contributing factors leading to environmental degradation. Such a perception assumes if individuals “only knew better” they would engage in more sustainable behaviours. The “knowledge deficit model” has been critiqued for not including social psychological research about how knowledge is incorporated into decision-making and its subsequent effect on human behaviour. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model has been used extensively to examine intention to engage in a variety of behaviours, therefore this model is applied to examine the effect knowledge has in predicting behaviour. Design/methodology/approach To better understand these relationships, the authors examined the relationships between sustainability behaviours through an online survey of over 500 students at a large university in the USA. Findings Results indicate that knowledge had a significant, albeit weak, bivariate correlation with behaviour (r = 0.113, p < 0.001). However, when controlling for TPB variables (attitudes, norms and perceived behavioural control), knowledge was not a significant predictor of behaviour. Research limitations/implications The authors conclude with several implications to guide university sustainability programmes. Originality/value This study places sustainable knowledge in the context of other social psychological factors which also influence behaviour. The results show that as the students are educated about sustainability, fostering behaviour change will require education not only about how actions affect sustainability but also about social norms, attitudes towards sustainable behaviours and the level of self-efficacy in doing those behaviours.