The Mediation Effect of Outdoor Recreation Participation on Environmental Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

Abstract

Outdoor recreation participation has increased over the past decades and is projected for further growth. Given the increase, it is important to assess recreationists’ environmental values, activity style, general, and site-specific attitudes and behaviors to promote environmental stewardship, and to develop effective strategies in natural resource management and public policy. This study explored recreationists’ environmental attitude-behavior relationship and the impact of outdoor recreation activity orientation (as a mediator variable) on attitude-behavior correspondence. Overall, attitudes exhibited stronger direct relationships with behaviors, when compared to the effect of participation on behaviors. The influence of activity participation on attitude-behavior correspondence was not significantly demonstrative. The association between participation in outdoor recreation and environmentalism is complex, and there is a need for additional research to better understand the relationship.

Keywords:

• environmental attitude-behavior correspondence
• mediation analysis
• outdoor recreation participation

Notes

1. Deletion of any item within the Dualcentric factor would not have significantly increased the Cronbach's alpha value. However, a factor that has a small number of items (six or less) and with alpha value close to .60 is acceptable for an exploratory study (see Cortina, 1993; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).

2. It is acknowledged that self-reported behaviors are generally employed in social science research, as it is usually difficult to directly observe behaviors given the level of involvement in time, costs and practicality. Self-reported behaviors are a limitation but do provide an alternative, even though reliability and validity of responses may be an issue (Tarrant & Cordell, 1997; Thapa et al., 2006).

3. For additional descriptive explanation of the frequency distributions and factor analysis of environmental attitudes and environmental behaviors see Thapa (2000) and Thapa and Graefe (2003).

4. For additional examples based on Baron and Kenny's (1986) mediation analysis and respective conditions see: Bright and Porter (2001); Tarrant and Green (1999); Thapa et al. (2005).