Conservation Intentions for Endangered Species and Biomes

Human attitudes influence biodiversity conservation, shaped by explicit preferences, values, emotions, and unconscious motives.
Study aims to understand how human motivations impact biodiversity conservation, examining the relationship between preferences for endangered species/biomes and intended donations.
Implicit preferences are preconscious automatic evaluations, measured via the Implicit Association Test (IAT).
Explicit preferences represent conscious judgments, assessed through surveys.
Implicit preferences can guide behavior due to social norms.
Few studies compare implicit and explicit preferences in relation to biodiversity.

Explicit preferences correlate with sociocultural factors (familiarity), evolutionary factors (cute response), and specific traits (color).
Familiarity affects attitudes toward animals and is correlated with biome preference.
Evolutionary factors drive preferences (savanna and forest hypotheses).
Specific traits of species (appearance, behavior) and biomes (trees, water) influence preferences.

Investigate implicit and explicit preferences toward endangered species and biomes to determine how they drive behavioral intentions to donate to conservation.
Objectives:
- Investigate implicit and explicit preferences for animal species and biomes.
- Evaluate whether implicit or explicit preferences determine intended donations.
- Qualitatively understand factors informing perceptions and preferences of species and biomes.

Three studies were conducted, examining implicit and explicit preferences.
Studies 1 and 2 used the Multi-Category Implicit Association Test (MC-IAT) and surveys to assess preferences, familiarity, endangerment, and intended donations.
Study 3 validated explicit preferences using a broader online sample via Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk).
Data analysis examined implicit measures (D scores) and explicit responses as predictors of intended donations.

Participants (n = 55) completed a 4-category species MC-IAT and a survey.
Species: sea otter, caribou, American badger, yellow-breasted chat.
MC-IAT measured association strength between species and positive attributes, calculating D scores.
Positive D scores indicate preference.
Survey included word association tasks, intended donation assessment,Explicit preference and perceived endangerment ranking, explicit preference rating and familiarity rating, and demographic information of participants.

Participants (n = 57) completed the MC-IAT with biomes (forest, ocean, grassland, tundra).
Followed by a survey measuring explicit preferences, familiarity, intended donation, word associations, perceived threat, and demographic questions.

Recruited 463 participants via Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk).
Participants completed a survey with questions about the four species (study 1) and four biomes (study 2).
The MC-IAT was not run due to the need for a controlled laboratory environment.

Paired t-tests were used to test differences between D scores.
One-way ANOVAs tested differences in ratings on preferences, familiarity, perceived endangerment, and intended donation.
-Post-hoc Tukey’s HSD tests were used to elucidate further pairwise differences.
Correlation tests ran between D scores and ratings of preferences.
Multiple regressions examined factors (D scores, explicit preferences, familiarity, perceived endangerment) predicting intended donation.
Word association task coded using axial coding, creating labels and broad categories (positive/negative associations).
Chi-squared tests evaluated statistical differences between positive and negative associations.

Study 1: Caribou was implicitly more preferred than American badger ( $t(54) = 2.36$ , $p = 0.02$ , $d = 0.38$ ).
Explicit preferences showed sea otter as most preferred (p < 0.005).
Implicit and explicit preferences didn't align; caribou preferred implicitly, sea otter explicitly. No significant correlations between D scores and explicit ratings (p > 0.05).

Explicit preference significantly predicted intended donation for each species.
For sea otter and American badger, perceived endangerment also significantly predicted intended donation.
Word association task: sea otter had more positive associations; American badger had more negative associations.
Study 2: Forest and ocean were implicitly preferred over grassland and tundra (p < 0.001).
Explicit preferences aligned (forest/ocean preferred).

Explicit preferences predicted intended donation for conservation of biomes.
Sea otter and yellow-breasted chat had more positive associations, while the American badger was the only species with more negative than positive responses.

Explicit, not implicit preferences, predicted intended donation.
Explicit preferences determine intended donation, correlated with familiarity.
People feel no need to hide preferences for particular species or biomes.
Explicit attitudes are better predictors of behaviors when stating preferences is not controversial.