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Natural resource management at four social scales: psychological type matters
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Natural resource management at four social scales: psychological type matters

H.E. Allison and R.J. Hobbs
Environmental Management, Vol.45(3), pp.590-602
2010
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Abstract

Psychological type Temperament Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI (R)) Decision making Natural resource management (NRM) Complexity Change Australia
Understanding organisation at different social scales is crucial to learning how social processes play a role in sustainable natural resource management. Research has neglected the potential role that individual personality plays in decision making in natural resource management. In the past two decades natural resource management across rural Australia has increasingly come under the direct influence of voluntary participatory groups, such as Catchment Management Authorities. The greater complexity of relationships among all stakeholders is a serious management challenge when attempting to align their differing aspirations and values at four social institutional scales-local, regional, state and national. This is an exploratory study on the psychological composition of groups of stakeholders at the four social scales in natural resource management in Australia. This article uses the theory of temperaments and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) to investigate the distribution of personality types. The distribution of personality types in decision-making roles in natural resource management was markedly different from the Australian Archive sample. Trends in personality were found across social scales with Stabilizer temperament more common at the local scale and Theorist temperament more common at the national scale. Greater similarity was found at the state and national scales. Two temperaments comprised between 76 and 90% of participants at the local and regional scales, the common temperament type was Stabilizer. The dissimilarity was Improviser (40%) at the local scale and Theorist (29%) at the regional scale. Implications for increasing participation and bridging the gap between community and government are discussed.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Citation topics
6 Social Sciences
6.73 Social Psychology
6.73.1166 Personality Assessment
Web Of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
ESI research areas
Environment/Ecology
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