Group differences in the enjoyability of driving through rural landscapes

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Abstract

Most landscape preference research has focused on finding an empirical basis for public consensus. Few studies to date have examined why different groups prefer some landscapes over others. This paper explores some of the factors that may explain differences in preference for roadside landscapes in rural Wisconsin. Of the six groups selected to participate in this study, three of them earned their livelihood from the land — dairy farmers, professional foresters, and logging contractors. Three other groups sought rural landscapes, we surmised, for their amenities — members of lake associations and two groups of prospective tourists. Videotapes were the presentation media, and sequences of photographs along state highways in Wisconsin simulated the experience of driving through farm, forest and urban edge landscapes. Participants rated the enjoyability of driving through each landscape type. Significant differences were found among the participant groups, landscape types and the interaction between groups and landscape types. Of the background variables used in the study, only the participant’s reported knowledge regarding land management was found to be significant.

Introduction

Most of the empirical research on landscape quality in the United States to date has stemmed from the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 that required aesthetics to be considered in federally funded projects. The primary focus of research since then has been on finding consensus among the public regarding landscape quality (Zube and Craik, 1976). The research paradigms for measuring landscape quality have come primarily from the field of environmental psychology. The reliability and validity of those research paradigms are well established, and today few question that the quality of a landscape can be quantified.

Although some studies have reported differences in landscape preference among various groups of participants, little is known about the basis for group differences in landscape preference. After reviewing the extensive literature on observer-based measures of landscape quality, Zube et al. (1982) concluded that much of that research tended to be descriptive, concentrating on the ‘what’ of landscape perception, rather than on the ‘why’ or ‘how’. Perhaps the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of landscape perception may be better understood by examining group differences in landscape preference. Understanding the basis for differences in landscape preference may in turn help to place landscape planning in the broader context of society, as advocated by Linehan and Gross (1988).

Lyons (1983) noted that a large number of studies explain landscape preferences in terms of the physical features in natural and man-made landscapes, that is, in terms of the physical elements which land managers can manipulate to some degree. Relatively little attention has been given to differences in landscape preference that may result from participants with different backgrounds and experiences. The high degree of consensus reported in many preference studies, Lyons suggests, may be an artifact of sampling persons of similar backgrounds and experiences, such as ‘college students, local residents, foresters or park visitors’. The few studies that did include disparate groups of participants found some of the differences in landscape preference were explained by environmental experiences as a child (Zube et al., 1974); by social class (Duncan, 1973); by perceived safety (Schroeder, 1982), Kuo et al. (1998); by age and residential experience (Lyons, 1983); and by professional bias (Zube et al., 1974, Ribe, 1989), and culture (Yang and Brown, 1992, Kaplan and Talbot, 1988). In the related area of recreation behavior, Dwyer and Hutchison (1990) found cultural differences among black and white households in Chicago. Black residents were more likely to engage in activities closer to home than were whites, and blacks strongly preferred to recreate at highly developed facilities with conveniences, whereas whites preferred more natural, less developed sites.

Section snippets

Method

We recently had an opportunity to explore differences in landscape preferences. As part of a larger study of the influence of roadside landscapes on travel behavior, we sampled a range of landscape types and participant groups. Using a video questionnaire, we simulated the experience of driving along travel corridors through farm, forest and urban edge landscapes in Wisconsin. As the dependent variable we chose the term ‘enjoyable’, that is, the level of enjoyment derived from driving through a

Results

As shown in Table 2, three factors had a significant effect on enjoyability ratings: participant group, landscape type and participant’s knowledge regarding landscape type. The experience factor, whether a person grew up in a given landscape type, proved to be insignificant, with a p-value of 0.8414. The interaction between landscape type and participant group was significant, and Fig. 1 illustrates how levels of enjoyability varied among participant groups over the three landscape types. Note

Discussion

Our results show that there were significant differences in the way the six groups of participants rated the experience of driving through the three landscape types, and some of the variation can be attributed to participant knowledge regarding land management and land use practices common to the three landscape types. The other variables included in the study — age, gender, childhood experience and occupation did not account for much of the variation in enjoyability.

All groups but the farmers

Conclusions

This may be the first instance where a landscape preference survey was conducted using videotape as the presentation format. Some participants noted at the end of their questionnaire that they found the video survey to be an interesting and pleasant experience. However, the need to own a VCR in order to play the videotape was frequently mentioned as the reason for not participating. In this study we did not test the reliability of video questionnaire, however, based on extensive pretests and

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Agriculture and Natural Resources Consortium, University of Wisconsin.

Robert Brush is an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has formerly been a research landscape architect with the USDA-Forest Service and a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. He holds an M.L.A. and Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

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Robert Brush is an associate professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has formerly been a research landscape architect with the USDA-Forest Service and a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. He holds an M.L.A. and Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Richard E. Chenoweth holds joint appointments as professor in Department of Landscape Architecture and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He obtained the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology at the University of Illinois-Urbana. He has formerly been Director of the Center for Resource Policy Studies in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, UW-Madison.

Todd Barman was a graduate student in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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