Integrative complexity of public perceptions about wildfire management

Abstract

Since the early 1900s fire management has been, and remains, a highly controversial issue that is intensely debated Perhaps as a consequence of its relevance, research has found that attitudes toward fire management practices have not been skewed in any particular direction: Subject responses have been fairly evenly distributed. The range afforded by attitudinal domains offers an appropriate opportunity to investigate the underlying structure of an attitude and its content manifestations Beyond what people think (e.g., attitudes toward prescribed fire), it is equally important to understand how people think about the issues. In order to study how people think about wildfire and its management, we employed the use of integrative complexity The measurement of integrative complexity was developed by cognitive psychologists and is based on two criteria: 1) The number of dimensions that people view related to an issue, and 2) how they integrate those dimensions Integrative complexity analyzes the structure of thought an individual has about an issue, not its content We measured the integrative complexity of perceptions regarding wildfire and its management Homeowners in two Minnesota counties were asked to describe, in an essay, their position on this issue using a mail-back questionnaire. We examined how integrative complexity was related to attitudinal dimensions (direction and extremity) toward wildfire, value orientations, acceptability of management actions, and sociodemographics We found that integrative complexity was related to attitude extremity, but not attitude direction. Further, it was found that the relationship between value orientations and acceptability of management actions was influenced by integrative complexity. No relationship was found between integrative complexity and sociodemographics Implications of this research lie in the further understanding of nature of the public's attitudes and values toward wildfire and its management, and how they are in turn influenced by integrative complexity.