Wildlife values can inform strategic conservation communication efforts

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ways in which people value wildlife, or “wildlife value orientations,” shape attitudes and behaviors and can even predict support for environmental issues. As such, wildlife value orientations can be used strategically to inform communication strategies. We used a national, experimental framing survey (n = 1,998) to investigate how the two most predominant wildlife value orientations in the US – domination and mutualism – affect people’s intentions to engage in conservation behaviors. Results showed that respondents on the mutualistic scale were more likely to express strong intentions to donate, engage in political activity, and adopt simple actions in support of conservation. In mutualistic-oriented respondents, pessimistically framed messages generally increased intentions to donate, but both optimistic and pessimistic-framed messages were likely to backfire and reduce intentions to adopt personal conservation actions. Our findings provide preliminary empirical evidence that wildlife value orientations could guide more effective communication approaches leading to behavior change.