Social Psychological and Behavioral Determinants Toward Wildlife

The increasingly mature literature explaining human behavior toward wildlife is broadly interdisciplinary. While such scholarly breadth adds richness to this literature, such diversity in approaches—if not managed intentionally—also may inhibit knowledge accumulation. My co-authors and I argue that a rigorous analysis of the behavior toward wildlife construct is a fruitful next step for further developing this literature and facilitating knowledge accumulation. We have compiled a range in behaviors toward wildlife into descriptive categories, which are measured in three separate ways: self-reported behaviors, behavioral intentions, and observed behaviors. This paper is entitled, “A Conceptual Framework for Dimensions of Behaviors about Wildlife.” As a compliment, another paper entitled, “Understanding the Cognitive Determinants of Behavior toward Wildlife,” synthesizes the wildlife and environment literature surrounding cognition in order to arrive at a consensus of labeling, defining and measuring concepts of cognition for purposes of consistency, clarity, and progress. Finally, the manuscript entitled, “More than Attitudes and Perceptions: Understanding the Importance of Cognition and Human Behavior toward Jaguars” takes the theoretical frames from the first two papers to focus in on jaguars. This manuscript is comparative in that it took the literature on human perceptions of jaguars produced by conservation biologists and aligned it with the social science variables discussed in the wildlife and environment literature to offer next steps for empirical work that is accurately aligned with the theory. The three manuscripts will contribute to the larger human-wildlife literature regarding theory and measurements toward sociological understandings of human relations and conflict with large predators.

Kelly, Jennifer Rebecca, Marisa A. Rinkus and Aaron McCright. “A Conceptual
Framework for Dimensions of Behaviors about Wildlife.”

Kelly, Jennifer Rebecca, Marisa A. Rinkus and Aaron McCright. “Understanding the
Cognitive Determinants of Behavior toward Wildlife.”

Kelly, Jennifer Rebecca. “More than Attitudes and Perceptions: Understanding the
Importance of Cognition and Human Behavior toward Jaguars.”

Cultivating the Globally Sustainable Self: How the Human Species Might Fulfill its Potential

In a contract with Oxford University Press, my co-authors and I have a chapter that highlights an ecological approach to human relations with the environment, which focuses on theory, data, and practice regarding the impact of human exposure to: the natural world, ecological places that have been preserved and protected, and nonhuman species. We emphasize the motivations and processes for such encounters may: be needs-based from an evolutionary perspective, hold aesthetic resonance, and have psychological restoration qualities. In addition to theory and data that bear directly on self-sustenance in these three domains, we focus on actual practices and examples that illustrate the powerful needs and demonstrable outcomes of exposure to places, spaces, and species, from our earliest years throughout the human lifespan.

Doherty, Thomas, Justin Sarafin, Jennifer Rebecca Kelly and Miguel Rodríguez.
“Sustaining the Self: What We Can Learn by Encountering Spaces, Places, and Species”
In Craig Shealy’s (ed.), Cultivating the Globally Sustainable Self: How the Human
Species Might Fulfill its Potential. Oxford University Press.