In this investigation, we developed a model of the psychological drivers of landowners’ decisions to implement prescribed fire on their properties. The Southern Great Plains in the USA evolved with fire and prescribed fire is an important management tool aimed at maintaining and enhancing ecological and economic resilience in the region. The conceptualized model is reflective of a decision-making paradigm that considers decision making to be a process inclusive of a variety of factors and their inter-relationships to arrive at judgments on whether or not to utilize prescribed fire. The approach considered a spectrum of inputs, obstacles, and their associations to capture the complexity of decision making that is often lost when modeling single factors in dynamic social-ecological settings. Further, we considered the decision to use prescribed fire as a multifactor process that incorporates not only individual barriers to fire implementation but inter-barrier associations and other inputs (e.g., sociodemographic variables). Path analysis revealed five statistically significant relationships within the hypothesized model. For prescribed fire decision making, women tended to be more analytical whereas men were more inclined to rely on heuristics. Additionally, those who indicated owning their property for non-consumptive recreation-related reasons were also more inclined to rely upon heuristics. Texans reported more experience with prescribed fire as did respondents who indicated owning property for livestock product. Alternately, those owning their property for an investment and non-consumptive recreation opportunities reported less experience with prescribed fire. Last, ownership for crop and livestock production was positively associated with past wildfire experience. Findings have implications for three issue areas: (1) the provision of an evolved conceptualization through which prescribed fire implementation decisions can be examined, (2) enhancing the approach of prescribed fire outreach to a changing landowner population, and (3) improving the content and delivery of prescribed fire education efforts.

在这项调查中，我们开发了土地所有者决定对其财产实施规定火灾的心理驱动因素模型。美国南部大平原伴随着火灾而演变，规定的火灾是一项重要的管理工具，旨在维持和增强该地区的生态和经济复原力。概念化模型反映了一种决策范式，该范式认为决策是一个过程，包括各种因素及其相互关系，以判断是否使用规定的火力。该方法考虑了一系列输入、障碍及其关联，以捕捉在动态社会生态环境中对单个因素进行建模时经常丢失的决策的复杂性。更远，我们考虑将使用规定火灾作为一个多因素过程的决定，该过程不仅包括对火灾实施的个人障碍，还包括障碍间关联和其他输入（例如，社会人口变量）。路径分析揭示了假设模型中的五个统计显着关系。对于规定的火灾决策，女性往往更具分析性，而男性更倾向于依赖启发式。此外，那些表示因非消费性娱乐相关原因而拥有财产的人也更倾向于依赖启发式方法。德州人和表示拥有牲畜产品财产的受访者一样，报告了更多的规定火灾经验。交替，那些拥有财产用于投资和非消费性娱乐机会的人报告的规定火灾经验较少。最后，农作物和牲畜生产的所有权与过去的野火经历呈正相关。调查结果对三个问题领域具有影响：(1) 提供了一个演变的概念，通过它可以检查规定的火灾实施决策，(2) 加强对不断变化的土地所有者人口进行规定的火灾外展的方法，以及 (3) 改进内容并提供规定的消防教育工作。