41114.2 Beliefs , Attitudes , and Behaviors
A common topic for researchers who study the human dimensions of natural
resource management centers on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of people
whose opinions or actions affect how land is managed. In the United States (USA),
where citizens legally have a stake in the management of public lands , belief-
attitude- behavior research is often intended to help land managers understand
stakeholders’ support or opposition to proposed actions, as well as to guide devel-
opment of outreach efforts regarding the use of public lands. Because US
Department of Interior agencies or the USDA Forest Service manage so much of
the land affected by invasion of B. tectorum in the Intermountain West and B. rubens
in the Southwest, researchers have studied how citizens or specifi c stakeholder
groups view the types of management practices used to reduce impacts of exotic
grass invasion. Generally, this research has been driven by the need to address con-
cerns about the effect of Bromus invasion on wildfi re cycles and conversion of
native ecosystems to Bromus dominance. However, most research on exotic inva-
sive plants has been broad in scope or focused on forb species. In this chapter, we
discuss studies in the latter category that are potentially applicable to exotic annual
grass management.
Before describing this research, it may be useful to review a few key concepts.
Often a goal of applied social-psychological research is to promote a change in
behavior toward a particular object (e.g., a person, place, concept, or activity).
Because humans generally try to behave in ways that refl ect their thoughts (Petty
and Briñol 2010 ; Fishbein and Ajzen 2011 ), behavior change strategies often
focus on infl uencing people’s attitudes—i.e., favorable or unfavorable thought
orientations—toward the object and/or behavior of interest. Attitudes, in turn, are
expressions of people’s values and beliefs. Values broadly express the importance
that individuals place on appropriate outcomes or courses of action (what “should”
be true), while beliefs are more specifi c expressions describing what an individ-
ual thinks “is” true. Beliefs can be cognitive , what we typically think of as factual
knowledge; normative , related to one’s perceptions of what other people believe
should occur; or behavioral , pertaining to the perceived consequences of behav-
ior (Trafi mow and Sheeran 1998 ; Petty and Briñol 2010 ; Fishbein and Ajzen
2011 ). Because values are broadly focused and in adults tend to be stable and
diffi cult to change, attitude change strategies typically work in either of two
ways: (1) to convince people that a change in attitude would be more consistent
with their values or (2) to change or add to their stockpile of beliefs about the
object of interest. A necessary fi rst step in the latter approach is to determine what
people already believe about the object and why. Such research often, but not
always, is combined with studies of attitudes and potential determinants of atti-
tude change.
14 Human Dimensions of Invasive Grasses