Marine environments are essential for both humans and nature. To promote their protection, it is crucial to understand how people value these environments and how this relates to their sense of personal responsibility to protect marine environments (i.e., marine personal norm). Two typologies of values are particularly relevant: basic human values, which represent what people generally find meaningful in life, and marine value orientations, which reflect what individuals deem important about the marine environment. We reason that basic human values and marine value orientations are distinct yet related constructs, and hypothesise that basic human values, via marine value orientations, predict the marine personal norm. Despite providing key insights into how abstract values translate to more concrete beliefs about actions, these associations have hardly been researched. To address this identified research gap, this study employed a large-scale survey of 1477 Belgian participants, including 815 tourists and 662 coastal residents.
Linear regression analyses revealed that basic human values and marine value orientations were indeed related but distinct constructs, each being correlated with each other, but also contributing to the explanation of the marine personal norm. Specifically, a multi-group structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis showed that individuals with stronger biospheric or altruistic values (i.e., concern for nature and others) held a stronger marine personal norm. Moreover, this relationship was (partially) mediated by heightened intrinsic and nature-relational value orientations (valuing the sea's intrinsic worth and people's connection to it, respectively). Furthermore, stronger hedonic values (i.e., concern for pleasure and comfort) were also indicative of a stronger marine personal norm, and this relationship was fully mediated by strengthened nature-relational value orientations. Additional relationships between basic human values and value orientations were found, but these did not extend to the marine personal norm. Although residents scored significantly higher than tourists on biospheric values, all marine value orientations, and the personal norm, the conceptual framework with its relationships was consistent across residents and tourists. This research enhances theoretical understanding of how basic human values and value orientations relate to each other and to feelings of responsibility to protect marine environments. In addition, it provides practical insights for engaging the public in marine conservation efforts.
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