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Steven
Brown, Tim W. Clark, Murray Rutherford, & Kimberly Byrd |
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| In December 2002 NRCC held a workshop in Bozeman, Montana, for twenty-seven professionals to share views about carnivore conservation. Political psychologist Steven Brown of Kent State University led the exercises in viewpoint clarification through a technique called Q method, which allows individuals to map their personal viewpoints about an issue and then analyzes dimensions of agreement and disagreement across viewpoints. Responses to focal questions about the problems and solutions of carnivore conservation were Q sorted from “agree” to “disagree.” Computer analysis revealed four distinct groups—environmentalists, localists, interactive analysts, and economic pragmatists— two of which were polar opposites. |  |
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The workshop provided a quantitative profile of similarities and differences among perspectives. It produced a way for participants to view themselves relative to others and offered a better way to label, describe, and talk about the different ways people see themselves, their actions, and carnivore conservation. Furthermore, it provided insight into the basic assumptions under which each individual/group operates, which should stimulate reflection and possible redirection. The workshop also provided a way to identify commonalities and possible areas of cooperation in the future. Brown’s preliminary report suggested how the results of this exercise might be used to develop possible sources of cooperation among the various groups in society that this analysis has revealed. One group might be willing, for example, to lend support to solution A, which is of little importance to them but more important to the other groups, in exchange for those groups’ support for solution B. For
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