Rouven Doran

Intentions to make sustainable tourism choices: do value orientations, time perspective, and efficacy beliefs explain individual differences?

ABSTRACT There is a growing literature addressing psychological variables that can be associated with choices of environmentally sustainable tourism alternatives. This paper contributes to this literature by focusing on individual differences in value orientations (i.e. egoistic values, altruistic values, and biospheric values), time perspective (i.e. consideration of immediate consequences and consideration of future consequences), and efficacy beliefs (i.e. self-efficacy and collective efficacy). A cross-sectional survey (N = 385) was carried out to investigate the role of each of these psychological variables in explaining intentions to choose environmentally sustainable travel options. Overall results showed that value orientations, time perspective, and efficacy beliefs together contributed to explaining about 53% of the variance in behavioural intentions. Consideration of future consequences and collective efficacy showed the strongest associations with behavioural intentions. Implications of these findings for research and managerial practice are noted.

Attitudes, efficacy beliefs, and willingness to pay for environmental protection when travelling

Environmental sustainability may be seen as a collective challenge that can only be met if a sufficient number of individuals cooperate. Whether or not individual tourists are willing to contribute their share may thus depend not only on the degree to which they think that environmental sustainability is important (attitudes), but also on the degree to which they think that other tourists hold similar attitudes (social comparison). Other possible influences are beliefs that ones own behaviour can make a difference (self-efficacy beliefs) and that tourists as a group together can make a difference (collective efficacy beliefs). This paper reports on findings from a study (N = 358) that investigated the role of these factors in explaining peoples willingness to pay for environmental protection when travelling. Attitudes, self-efficacy and collective efficacy accounted for 30% of the variance in willingness to pay for environmental protection; social comparison did not explain additional variance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change: insights from nationally representative surveys across four European countries

Abstract This paper examines consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change across four European countries. Data from nationally representative samples (each n > 1000) were analysed in order to explore the relative importance of consequences versus morality in explaining public support for different climate policies. Most respondents expected climate change to have largely negative consequences for their respective country. Climate change consequences were viewed most negatively in Germany, followed by France, the U.K. and Norway. While the vast majority of respondents expressed at least some degree of moral concern about climate change, a notable minority in each sample stated that they have no such concerns. Moral concerns were highest in France, followed by the U.K. and Norway, and lowest in Germany. It was found that both judgements explain support for policies that aim to mitigate climate change or aim to adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, our results further suggest that moral concern was a stronger predictor of policy support than consequence evaluations. If at all, consequence evaluations were more likely to predict policy support in Germany and Norway than in the U.K. and France. Overall, policies that involved subsidies received the strongest support, whereas policies involving individual costs received the least support. This research broadens our understanding of the intertwining between risk perceptions and public support for climate policies, documenting variability across and within countries. Implications for policy-makers with an interest in communicating climate change risks to the broader public audience are discussed.

Comparison between own and others’ travel motives: A research note

This study examines the assumption that tendencies to dissociate oneself from other tourists relate to the desire to position own characteristics (using travel motives as an example) in a positive light. Results suggest that tourists tend to perceive themselves to be different to other tourists (referred as typical or average tourists) concerning most measured travel motives; yet, the direction of perceived differences between oneself and other tourists was not systematically related to levels of desirability associated with each motive. Implications for studying tourist experiences are being discussed whilst methodological limitations of the present study are acknowledged.

Laypeople’s Affective Images of Energy Transition Pathways

This paper explores the public perception of energy transition pathways, that is, individual behaviors, political strategies, and technologies that aim to foster a shift toward a low-carbon and sustainable society. We employed affective image analysis, a structured method based on free associations to explore positive and negative connotations and affective meanings. Affective image analysis allows to tap into affective meanings and to compare these meanings across individuals, groups, and cultures. Data were collected among university students in Norway (n = 106) and Germany (n = 125). A total of 25 energy transition pathway components were presented to the participants who generated one free association to each component by indicating the first that came to mind when thinking of the component. Participants evaluated their associations by indicating whether they considered each association to be positive, negative, or neutral. These associations were coded by two research assistants, which resulted in 2650 coded responses in the Norwegian sample and 2846 coded responses in the German sample. Results for the two samples are remarkably similar. The most frequent type of association is a general evaluation of the component, for example concerning its valence or its importance. The second most frequent types of association are requirements needed to implement the component (e.g., national policies) and consequences of the component (e.g., personal or environmental consequences). Individual behaviors (e.g., walking) elicited thoughts about consequences and requirements, but also about the prevalence of such behaviors. Associations in response to technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage) mainly referred to some descriptive aspect of the technology. Evaluations of the free responses were predominantly positive, but some components also elicited negative associations, especially nuclear power. The free associations that people generate suggest that they have vague and unspecific knowledge about energy transition pathways, that they process them in an automatic and intuitive rather than deliberative manner, and that they have clear affective evaluations of the presented components.

Socially desirable responding: the case of self-reported values in tourism surveys

This study explored associations between socially desirable responding and self-reported values in tourism surveys. Measures of egoistic values, altruistic values, and biospheric values were significantly associated with self-deception/assertion of positives, but neither with self-deception/denial of negatives nor with impression management. Researchers and marketers may take into account that self-reports of personal values could be distorted by tendencies for self-deception to some extent.