More than a feeling: Cognitive beliefs and positive—but not negative—affect predict overall attitudes toward predators

Abstract

Attitudes, which can be thought of as the sum of individuals' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs concerning an attitude object, inform how people interact with the world around them. An understanding of attitudes may play an important role in promoting desirable human behavior, and attitudes studies should be incorporated into any behavior‐change intervention. One framework for understanding attitudes is the ABC, or “tripartite” model, which says that affect (“A,” i.e., emotional response); previous behavior (“B”); and cognition (“C,” i.e., beliefs) are the basis for an individual's attitude. Although this framework is widely used in social psychology, few conservation studies break down the “attitude” monolith into these more usable components. In this study, we sought apply the ABC framework to understand how affect and cognitive beliefs relate to overall attitude toward predators across southern Kenya and north‐west Zimbabwe. We used a factor analysis approach to identify latent affective (n = 3) and cognitive (n = 3) factors relating to human–predator interactions. These factors were then used to construct a regression model, which examined the power of the psychological factors to explain overall attitudes toward predators. We found that the model explained 27% of variation in attitudes, with four independently significant factors: location; perceived harms of living with predators; perceived benefits of killing predators; and positive affect. Although effect sizes were relatively small, these results suggest that cognitive beliefs may substantially influence attitudes, and therefore that interventions which seek to (a) remove the factual basis for negative beliefs and (b) improve perceptions or dispel unfounded beliefs may play a significant role in changing overall attitudes toward predators.

Potential conflict as an opportunity for coexistence: cosmovision and attitudes of Arhuaco people towards jaguars

“…Our results prove the profound ecological awareness of the Arhuaco people since several studies of other human communities show that people affected by livestock predation and who have more frequent contact with jaguars tend to have more negative attitudes than those who are less likely to have contact, regardless of their ethnicity (Figel et al 2011;Fort et al 2018;Marchini et al 2019;Saenz-Bolaños 2021). It has also been reported that cognitive and affective components are important in attitudes towards predators (Davenport et al 2010;Landon et al 2020), beliefs being the determining aspects (Perry et al 2022).…”

Public perceptions and attitudes toward urban wildlife encounters – A decade of change

“…On the other hand, an attitude is "an association, in memory, of an evaluation with an object or activity" (p. 341 in Fazio et al, 1982). Attitudes can also be defined as the culmination of thoughts, feelings or opinions either about a particular object or personal experiences (Perry et al, 2022) and can be regarded as positive or negative thoughts, feelings or behaviour about something (Almeida et al, 2014). Therefore, "attitude" is the evaluation of an object i.e., the tendency (either favourable or unfavourable) toward something.…”

Emotional states elicited by wolf videos are diverse and explain general attitudes towards wolves

“…attitudes, Canis lupus, emotional space, emotions, environmental psychology, fear, humanwildlife conflicts carnivores (Moures-Nouri et al, 2023;Perry et al, 2022). Studies on emotional dispositions towards wildlife have primarily focused on the evolutionary perspective underpinning our reactions towards species (Öhman, 2007, 2009) and in the context of coexistence with large carnivores, mainly focused on fear and disgust (Flykt et al, 2013;Frynta et al, 2023;Johansson, Sandström, et al, 2016;Mammola et al, 2020).…”

“…Recent studies have investigated the links between emotions and connectedness to nature (Lumber et al., 2017), looking at emotions towards rewilding (Wynne‐Jones, 2022), and emotional dispositions towards wildlife species in particular (Jacobs, 2012), like bats (Straka, Greving, et al., 2020), spiders (Rinck & Becker, 2007), wolves (Landon et al., 2020), pumas (Dechner, 2021) and other large carnivores (Moures‐Nouri et al., 2023; Perry et al., 2022). Studies on emotional dispositions towards wildlife have primarily focused on the evolutionary perspective underpinning our reactions towards species (Öhman, 2007, 2009) and in the context of coexistence with large carnivores, mainly focused on fear and disgust (Flykt et al., 2013; Frynta et al., 2023; Johansson, Sandström, et al., 2016; Mammola et al., 2020).…”