Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals
Abstract The importance of human behavior in biodiversity conservation is widely recognized, but there is little published evidence about how conservation professionals make decisions when conservation values are at stake. We take a behavioral economics approach, administering simplified decision pr...
Published in: | Conservation Science and Practice |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Wiley
2023
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12921 |
id |
crwiley:10.1111/csp2.12921 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crwiley:10.1111/csp2.12921 2024-04-28T08:36:53+00:00 Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals Filewod, Ben Kant, Shashi MacDonald, Heather McKenney, Daniel 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12921 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Conservation Science and Practice volume 5, issue 6 ISSN 2578-4854 2578-4854 Nature and Landscape Conservation Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Ecology Global and Planetary Change journal-article 2023 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12921 2024-04-08T06:57:04Z Abstract The importance of human behavior in biodiversity conservation is widely recognized, but there is little published evidence about how conservation professionals make decisions when conservation values are at stake. We take a behavioral economics approach, administering simplified decision problems (“choice experiments”), questions about choice‐relevant preferences and views (“elicitation questions”), and a psychometric scale (the New Ecological Paradigm scale) to a difficult‐to‐recruit sample ( n = 100) of Canadian professionals involved in managing Rangifer tarandus caribou (Woodland Caribou). Our choice experiments reveal the importance of several decision biases (risk aversion, commission bias, and a bias towards fairness) in this influential group of conservation stakeholders. We then examine in‐sample differences between categories of professional affiliation (e.g., resource industry, environmental nongovernmental organization, or federal/provincial government), finding significant variation in responses to one elicitation question (reference points) and in psychometric scores. We discuss the implications of our findings for choice in conservation practice and for multistakeholder conservation policy. Comparing our findings to prior work on choice under uncertainty in nonconservation contexts suggests a possible replication problem in applying behavioral science insights to conservation problems, pointing to the need for a systematic research program. Results from development testing with a convenience sample of university students are presented for comparison throughout the study. Article in Journal/Newspaper Rangifer tarandus Wiley Online Library Conservation Science and Practice 5 6 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Wiley Online Library |
op_collection_id |
crwiley |
language |
English |
topic |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Ecology Global and Planetary Change |
spellingShingle |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Ecology Global and Planetary Change Filewod, Ben Kant, Shashi MacDonald, Heather McKenney, Daniel Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
topic_facet |
Nature and Landscape Conservation Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Ecology Global and Planetary Change |
description |
Abstract The importance of human behavior in biodiversity conservation is widely recognized, but there is little published evidence about how conservation professionals make decisions when conservation values are at stake. We take a behavioral economics approach, administering simplified decision problems (“choice experiments”), questions about choice‐relevant preferences and views (“elicitation questions”), and a psychometric scale (the New Ecological Paradigm scale) to a difficult‐to‐recruit sample ( n = 100) of Canadian professionals involved in managing Rangifer tarandus caribou (Woodland Caribou). Our choice experiments reveal the importance of several decision biases (risk aversion, commission bias, and a bias towards fairness) in this influential group of conservation stakeholders. We then examine in‐sample differences between categories of professional affiliation (e.g., resource industry, environmental nongovernmental organization, or federal/provincial government), finding significant variation in responses to one elicitation question (reference points) and in psychometric scores. We discuss the implications of our findings for choice in conservation practice and for multistakeholder conservation policy. Comparing our findings to prior work on choice under uncertainty in nonconservation contexts suggests a possible replication problem in applying behavioral science insights to conservation problems, pointing to the need for a systematic research program. Results from development testing with a convenience sample of university students are presented for comparison throughout the study. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Filewod, Ben Kant, Shashi MacDonald, Heather McKenney, Daniel |
author_facet |
Filewod, Ben Kant, Shashi MacDonald, Heather McKenney, Daniel |
author_sort |
Filewod, Ben |
title |
Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
title_short |
Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
title_full |
Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
title_fullStr |
Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
title_full_unstemmed |
Decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
title_sort |
decision biases and environmental attitudes among conservation professionals |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12921 |
genre |
Rangifer tarandus |
genre_facet |
Rangifer tarandus |
op_source |
Conservation Science and Practice volume 5, issue 6 ISSN 2578-4854 2578-4854 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12921 |
container_title |
Conservation Science and Practice |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
6 |
_version_ |
1797568467668303872 |