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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Introducing Interdisciplinary Curricula Into Conservation Biology: Exploring Changes In Students’ Perceived Proenvironmental Attitudes And Behaviors, Jasmine Janes, Lindsay J. Mccunn Nov 2022

Introducing Interdisciplinary Curricula Into Conservation Biology: Exploring Changes In Students’ Perceived Proenvironmental Attitudes And Behaviors, Jasmine Janes, Lindsay J. Mccunn

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Today, conserving the natural environment is paramount. Educators have been striving to develop pedagogical approaches that facilitate greater engagement in conservation behaviors. However, many of these reforms have been targeted at an institutional level, without necessarily testing whether changes in proenvironmental perceptions, attitudes, or behaviors occur for students. This step seems important when developing conservation biology courses that provide well-rounded education that may better prepare students for future challenges in biodiverse conservation contexts. Our objective was to assess the proenvironmental attitudes and conservation values of undergraduate students enrolled in an undergraduate conservation biology course before and after instruction to determine …


Acknowledging The Relevance Of Elephant Sensory Perception To Human–Elephant Conflict Mitigation, Robbie Ball, Sarah L. Jacobson, Matthew S. Rudolph, Miranda Trapani, Joshua M. Plotnik Apr 2022

Acknowledging The Relevance Of Elephant Sensory Perception To Human–Elephant Conflict Mitigation, Robbie Ball, Sarah L. Jacobson, Matthew S. Rudolph, Miranda Trapani, Joshua M. Plotnik

Publications and Research

Elephants are well known for their socio-cognitive abilities and capacity for multi-modal sensory perception and communication. Their highly developed olfactory and acoustic senses provide them with a unique non-visual perspective of their physical and social worlds. The use of these complex sensory signals is important not only for communication between conspecifics, but also for decisions about foraging and navigation. These decisions have grown increasingly risky given the exponential increase in unpredictable anthropogenic change in elephants’ natural habitats. Risk taking often develops from the overlap of human and elephant habitat in Asian and African range countries, where elephants forage for food …


Adapting Small Unmanned Aerial Systems For Behavioral Research With Coastal Marine Mammals, Eric Angel Ramos Feb 2022

Adapting Small Unmanned Aerial Systems For Behavioral Research With Coastal Marine Mammals, Eric Angel Ramos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Marine mammals inhabit aquatic worlds where their subsurface behavior, cryptic surface profiles, and movements make them difficult to study. New tools are needed to study coastal marine mammals in a world increasing impacted by climate change related shifts in weather and animal distribution patterns. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are important remote-sensing tools for studying a range of wildlife including terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna. These systems offer flexible platforms for adding sensor packages needed for different applications, for example, most are equipped with high-resolution cameras and GPS sensors. The vantage point from an aerial platform dramatically improves the ability …


The Diffusion Of A Discipline: Examining Social Marketing's Institutionalization Within Environmental Contexts, Liz Foote Jan 2022

The Diffusion Of A Discipline: Examining Social Marketing's Institutionalization Within Environmental Contexts, Liz Foote

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

As a social change discipline, social marketing has demonstrated its effectiveness in addressing many types of wicked problems. However, despite its utility in environmental contexts, it is neither well known nor widespread in its uptake in these settings. This study’s purpose is to reveal opportunities to drive the adoption, implementation, and diffusion (“institutionalization”) of social marketing within the domains of environmental sustainability and natural resource conservation. This research considers the use of social marketing as an innovative practice within a diffusion of innovations framework and uses a systems lens to examine early adopter social marketing professionals and the institutional contexts …


Body States Of Asian Elephants Within And Around Protected Areas In The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand, Caitlyn Thai Apr 2021

Body States Of Asian Elephants Within And Around Protected Areas In The Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Kanchanaburi, Thailand, Caitlyn Thai

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers are becoming increasingly aware that studying a species’ landscape of fear or, more broadly, their emotional states, can better inform cognitive questions about how animals navigate their environments. Vigilance behaviors are one way to determine how certain species perceive and respond to risky situations. Due to rapid environmental change, large animals such as elephants are experiencing risky encounters with humans more often than ever before. This study aims to investigate Asian elephants’ expressions of body states and how they might regulate their behavior based on perceived environmental risk or change. Specifically, we investigated the behavioral responses of Asian elephants …


Observation Of Visitors At A Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Schweinfurthii) Ecotourism Site Reveals Opportunity For Multiple Modes Of Pathogen Transmission, Darcey Glasser May 2019

Observation Of Visitors At A Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Schweinfurthii) Ecotourism Site Reveals Opportunity For Multiple Modes Of Pathogen Transmission, Darcey Glasser

Theses and Dissertations

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) tracking is a popular ecotourism activity across Sub-Saharan Africa, offering visitors a personal wildlife experience. However, chimpanzee ecotourism may increase the risk of disease transmission between chimpanzees and people. This study assessed how tourist behaviors might facilitate cross-species disease transmission in Kibale National Park, Uganda.


The Effects Of Environmental Education On Children's Knowledge Of Elephant Conservation In Rural And Urban Thailand, Tamara Aird Feb 2019

The Effects Of Environmental Education On Children's Knowledge Of Elephant Conservation In Rural And Urban Thailand, Tamara Aird

Theses and Dissertations

Think Elephants International’s EE program educated students on issues surrounding elephant conservation. One open-ended response question from surveys was analyzed to determine whether there was a knowledge difference between locations. After participation, urban students referenced more information about HEC, while rural students talked more about elephants’ role as keystone species.


Attitudes About Acceptable Risk In The Context Of The Biodiversity Crisis, Thomas Offer-Westort Jan 2019

Attitudes About Acceptable Risk In The Context Of The Biodiversity Crisis, Thomas Offer-Westort

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Crafting and enforcing conservation policy requires making normative judgements about what levels of risk are acceptable. These judgements include crucial decisions that impact which species qualify as “endangered.” If a government’s policies are going to represent the values of the public they govern, then public attitudes should be understood. Unfortunately, essentially nothing is known about public attitudes as they pertain to acceptable risk and the biodiversity crisis.

My research aims to address this gap using data from an internet-based survey (n=1050). I focused on the Endangered Species Act of 1973 which defines an endangered species as “any species which is …


Mobilizing Heads And Hearts For Wildlife Conservation, Valérie A. M. Schoof, Simon L'Allier Jan 2019

Mobilizing Heads And Hearts For Wildlife Conservation, Valérie A. M. Schoof, Simon L'Allier

Animal Sentience

Highlighting the shared evolutionary relationships between humans and animals — and recognizing that all species, including humans, are unique in their own way — may facilitate caring for and conserving animals by tapping into a human emotion: empathy.


Analyzing The Efficiency Of Reforestation Efforts In Regaining Carbon Storage In A Costa Rican Cloud Forest, Elvin Irihamye Mar 2018

Analyzing The Efficiency Of Reforestation Efforts In Regaining Carbon Storage In A Costa Rican Cloud Forest, Elvin Irihamye

Student Research Conference Select Presentations

Forests hold an important place in offsetting carbon emissions, absorbing nearly 40 percent of man-made fossil fuel emissions every year. Over the last 100 years, the effects of deforestation have crippled our forest’s ability to store excess carbon, leading to drastic atmospheric change. Efforts to regrow deforested forests have increased rapidly to address issues like climate change. There is thus a need to analyze current efforts at regaining carbon storage, a critical component to maintaining atmospheric homeostasis. Accordingly, we traveled to the Cloudbridge Nature Reserve in San Gerardo, Costa Rica to aggregate data on the carbon storage capabilities across three …


Boldness And Natural Behaviors In The African Lion (Panthera Leo): How Are They Related?, Courtney M. Kamyk Jan 2017

Boldness And Natural Behaviors In The African Lion (Panthera Leo): How Are They Related?, Courtney M. Kamyk

Honors Theses and Capstones

The African lion (Panthera leo) population is diminishing rapidly, approximately 43% since 1993 (Bauer et al., 2016. The species is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN (Bauer et al., 2016). With numerous threats to current populations including human conflict, prey depletion and habitat loss the African lion is in danger of becoming endangered or even critically endangered in the near future. Ex-situ conservation is a proposed method of restoring populations. The current study focuses on correlations of boldness with natural behaviors and sociality to further understand individual personality in hopes of connecting it with success after reintroduction. …


America's National Parks And The Anthropocene: Addressing The Present To Accommodate The Future In Acadia National Park, Sophie A. Swetz Jan 2017

America's National Parks And The Anthropocene: Addressing The Present To Accommodate The Future In Acadia National Park, Sophie A. Swetz

Honors Theses

In 2000, atmospheric chemist, Paul J. Crutzen, and limnologist, Eugene Stoermer, formally proposed the idea of “the Anthropocene,” a new geologic epoch in which humans are the dominant force shaping the Earth. To claim the Anthropocene's existence is to declare that human actions have altered the Earth in such a way that geologic indicators render it a distinct epoch in the stratification of geologic time. This new epoch emerges as a consequence of increased technological development employed to accommodate an anthropocentric human existence. That is, rapid advancements in technology have driven the transformation from a primarily naturally controlled planet to …


Marine Mammal Behavior: A Review Of Conservation Implications, Philippa Brakes, Sasha R. X. Dall Jun 2016

Marine Mammal Behavior: A Review Of Conservation Implications, Philippa Brakes, Sasha R. X. Dall

Social Behavior Collection

The three orders which comprise the extant marine mammals exhibit a wide range of behaviors, varying social structures, and differences in social information use. Human impacts on marine mammals and their environments are ubiquitous; from chemical and noise pollution, to marine debris, prey depletion, and ocean acidification. As a result, no marine mammal populations remain entirely unaffected by human activities. Conservation may be hindered by an inadequate understanding of the behavioral ecology of some of these species. As a result of social structure, social information use, culture, and even behavioral syndromes, marine mammal social groups, and populations can be behaviorally …


Understanding The Role Of Trust In Cooperation With Natural Resources Institutions, Joseph A. Hamm May 2014

Understanding The Role Of Trust In Cooperation With Natural Resources Institutions, Joseph A. Hamm

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation investigates the role of trust in predicting cooperation with a natural resources management institution. It begins with an exploration of the legal landscape against which the relationship between land owners and natural resources management institutions is contextualized, presents a review of the often ostensibly disparate trust literature and a framework for its integration, and proposes and tests a model of trust and cooperation in the natural resources context. The results provide mixed support for the model as proposed but confirm the importance of trust in this context and suggest implications for policy, especially the potential importance of increasing …


The Call Of The Wild (And The Caged): The Impact Of A Zoo's Exhibition Styles On The Attitudes Of Its Human Visitors, Erin S. Behn Jan 2013

The Call Of The Wild (And The Caged): The Impact Of A Zoo's Exhibition Styles On The Attitudes Of Its Human Visitors, Erin S. Behn

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.


Self-Control Conservation : A Closer Look At The Underlying Process, Nicholas Allegretti Freeman Jan 2010

Self-Control Conservation : A Closer Look At The Underlying Process, Nicholas Allegretti Freeman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Preliminary evidence suggests that when individuals believe that they will have to exert self-control in the near future, their performance on an intervening self-control task suffers so that limited self-control resources are conserved for later use (Muraven, Shmueli, & Burkley, 2006). The current research sought to further clarify the extent to which beliefs about the limited nature of self-control contribute to this conservation effect. Specifically, it is unclear whether simply recognizing that a task requires self-control is enough to prompt individuals to approach the task with a conservation strategy, or, if conservation strategies are only pursued in reaction to resources …


Retention Of Conservation Acquired By Instructional Methods, Eight Months After Termination Of Instruction, Wenden W. Waite May 1969

Retention Of Conservation Acquired By Instructional Methods, Eight Months After Termination Of Instruction, Wenden W. Waite

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study attempted to determine if subjects that had been instructed in the principle of conservation, maintained conservation after termination of instructions. Using subjects from kindergarten to third grade that had received instructions by use of both concrete example and mental imagery methods. Those S's that received instructions were compared with S's that had received no instructions. A test of conservation was administered to a total of 96 S's approximately eight months after termination of instructions to determine if the scores received on a test of those students that had received instructions exceeded those S's that had not received instructions. …