Emotional intelligence & ethical decision making in hunting tourism: a virtue based approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent research has indicated that hunting tourism is growing and that hunters tend to act more unethically when hunting as tourists. Informed by an Aristotelian Virtue-Ethics theoretical framework, the researchers propose and test a link between emotional intelligence and ethical decision-making. Specifically, survey-based research tests the relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical decision-making by measuring a hunter's perception of ethical behaviour of self. The multiple regression findings support a relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical decision-making. The proposed theoretical framework and results should inform the development of new evidence and theory-based hunter-education platforms. The framework and results should also provide novel theoretical and evidence-based grounds to study further and enhance the hunting tourism industry.