Abstract: |
Public support for wildfire management actions, as well as an agency’s response to wildfires, is context specific (e.g., the associated risks to human populations and the natural environment) and can vary among different segments of society. From a communications perspective it is important to also understand the degree to which support is mutable (i.e., changeable through the presentation of new information, new experiences or persuasion campaigns). Norm theory offers a paradigm for understanding 1) the range of wildfire conditions or management actions that different segments in the public will tolerate, 2) the intensity or strength of these evaluations (norm intensity), and 3) the extent to which individuals vary in their evaluations of what is acceptable (i.e., norm crystallization). Of these three characteristics of norms, crystallization has received the least amount of attention in the empirical literature. One objective of this paper is to demonstrate how an understanding of norm crystallization can inform management decisions. In contrast to traditional analysis strategies that focus on either standard deviations or the percentage of individuals who rate a particular situation as acceptable or unacceptable, an ipsative cluster model is developed to identify variability within and between different segments of the public. A second objective of this paper is to validate the model by exploring the relationship between the norm crystallization segments and their more general basic beliefs about wildfire management. The data were obtained from a mail survey of visitors to three national forests: 1) Arapaho-Roosevelt, Colorado (n = 469), 2) Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, Washington (n = 498), and 3) San Bernardino, California (n = 321). The theoretical and applied implications of the ipsative cluster model are discussed. |
