THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND CONSERVATION

[ed123456789000]

Hi,

I am part of a group of undergraduate Psychology students from the University of Edinburgh.

We are conducting research into the atitudes of the general public towards conservation.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could take our short, anonymous, online survey, which will take no longer than 10 minutes.

As a thank you for your participation, you will be entered into a prize draw to win an amazon voucher to the value of £50.

To enter, please go to the following website. however you must be over 18 years of age to take part.

Conservation Behaviour

thanks for your time.

Ed

also - as this is a discussion area i would be happy to answer any questions you have about the research.

:]

 

[Monty]

I found it some of the questions were contradictory.

*Conserving a species of animals is more important than preserving local traditions such as Inuit whaling or hunting

This question implies that traditional practices are not sustainable and continuing them will lead to extinctions, When realy these practices rely on the species being sustainable as the tradition will not continue if species are extinct. Traditional hunting may need to be limited to a sustainable number in some cases, but not necessarily banned. An Australian example is Dugongs which are possibly overhunted by aboriginals using modern boats and guns instead of traditional meathods. I suport continued hunting, but possibly with restrictions on the take or methods used.

*All animals are a resource for human use

My definition of conservation is "sustainable use", so if they were not an available for use by humans the term would be preservation, not conservation.

*Too many resources go into species conservation

Some resources are wasted on failing and poor programs while other good programs are under resourced. There is not one answer.

*Animals should have a voice in their future

How is this possable?

 

[ed123456789000]

Hi - thanks for your inquiry.

As well as looking at how conservation correlates with aspects of personality we also wanted to try to look at possible reasons for conservation to see whether personality had influence on them.

When talking to people, we found reasons for an interest in conservation varied hugely. while some people took an altruistic stance, looking for preservation for global interest some found their interest through a love for animals, originating perhaps with childhood pets etc.

for this we tried to come up with questions that tested love for animals against an altruistic goal such as human development or traditions.

another huge divide was between animal conservation and people interested in more general environmental conservation. we wanted to try to find out what reasons there were for this too.

with your first point about the hunting question - i understand your concerns. it was difficult to come up with a good example that would test peoples love for individual animals vs species conservation while at the same time allowing providing an example that the general public are aware of and may have feelings about. perhaps whaling was a bad example as it brings in 'greater good' population concerns too. although we specifically chose innuit hunting as a sustainable method rather than commercial hunting you have raised an important point (that i will definitely flag in the write up).

with your second query we were trying to draw a line between human and animal well being. whilst also maybe highlighting people who consider animals a resource that can be taken advantage of. but again- as you show someone with specialist knowledge could be confused by the question.

the question about too many resources was meant generally. as in "people care too much about" rather than anything specific. although again thanks for showing the ambiguity.

the final question was about animal rights, again, targeting people interested in conservation because they believe that people should stand and speak up for animals as they cannot stand up for themselves. we did not literally mean that they should speak to people. but thanks again perhaps we can word that better.

but in general thank you SO much for your response. - it is extremely helpful!
- very little research has been done in this area and the better and more reliable we can make the questions is the first step in the right direction. from here we will hopefully be able to make a model and refine our questions again and again but not without help like that.

so yes, this is very much a pilot, testing the water. next time will be better and more informed.

ed