In 2014, the Canary Islands were exposed to a decision-making process for an oil drilling project 80 kilometers offshore. Whereas the national government was in favor of oil drilling, the local government was against it because of the environmental impact, and the effect on tourism and the coastal ecosystem. In this study, we analyze the reactions of the local community to this project by connecting beliefs, perceived benefits, perceived risk, procedural justice, negative emotions, and acceptance through a tested structural equation model. The results showed that acceptance was essentially explained by perceived benefits and negative emotions, whereas perceived benefits and procedural justice predicted negative emotions. Several differences between males and females were found. These results are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the effects and emotional reactions of this type of project on the population before the final decision making.
2 March 2021 in International Journal of Social Psychology: Revista de Psicología Social
The objective of this study is to analyse the effect of perceived crowding and perceived restorative capacity on tourist satisfaction in different tourist environments. After visiting three tourist spaces, 1,958 tourists were surveyed. Three scales were used: (1) perceived restorative capacity of tourist environments; (2) perceived crowding; and (3) satisfaction, enjoyment and intention to recommend. The results showed that the perception of restorative capacity is intensely related to satisfaction measurements. In all three tourist spaces, satisfaction decreases as perceived restorative capacity drops. Likewise, the perception of crowding shows an inverse relationship with satisfaction; tourists who had a strong sense of being disturbed over the number of people at the site had lower levels of satisfaction, enjoyment and intention to recommend. The results show the important role played by perceived restorative capacity and the perception of crowding on tourist satisfaction and the need to explore the role of psycho-environmental variables on satisfaction by incorporating the unique features of the place visited.
2 September 2021 in Studies in Psychology: Estudios de Psicología
Before the health crisis began, there was already evidence that women are twice as likely as men to experience negative emotions in stressful situations. Given these precedents, analysing the environmental and psychological factors that can influence this state, as well as the coping strategies aimed at mitigating or preventing this emotional response to confinement, is essential. The results of this study indicate that the negative emotions experienced by women during confinement are affected by their perception of the world, response to uncertainty, emotional intelligence and the habitability of their home. Similarly, the study found that these same factors influence women’s coping patterns during confinement, with the exception of response to uncertainty. These results may help develop intervention strategies aimed at protecting women’s mental health in similar future situations.
This study tests a theoretical model explaining reactions to animal abuse in terms of attitudes, norms, and moral obligation, based on research concerning pro-environmental and anti-ecological behavior, as offenses against animals have been considered environmental crimes in legal terms. The sample consisted of 624 people from the general population, aged 18 to 93 (64.1% female), randomly assigned one of three versions of the same scenario of abuse, differing in the category of animal (protected/pet/farm). Participants were requested to complete a questionnaire that included items about the observed variables (descriptive social norm) and latent variables (injunctive social norm, personal norm, moral obligation, attitude toward animals, speciesism, and reaction to animal abuse). The resulting model obtained appropriate fit indices (RMSEA = 0.054; CFI = 0.917) and a high percentage of explained variance of reaction (77%) and confirmed the expectation that moral obligation is the strongest predictor of reactions to animal abuse and activates the personal norm. Personal norm is predicted by attitudes toward animals and the injunctive social norm, which depends on the descriptive social norm. Speciesism was excluded from the model due to its negative covariance with attitudes toward animals and to provide a better-fitting model. The results are discussed in terms of how the human–animal relationship is mediated by the role played in animal categorization, not only by their characteristics, but also by the instrumentality attributed to them socially and culturally.