Generalizing the encounter - norm - crowding relationship

Theory predicts that when encounters exceed a visitor's norm for seeing others, crowding will increase. This article examines this relationship using data from 13 different studies (n = 10,697) that included both high- and low-density study sites, and 12 different activities. Measures of recreation encounters asked respondents to indicate the number of people they remembered seeing in different contexts. Crowding was measured using a 9-point Likert scale. An indicator of the individual's tolerance norm was obtained by asking respondents to specify the highest number of encounters they would tolerate for a given situation. As hypothesized, perceived crowding was significantly higher for individuals indicating more encounters than their norm (t = 12.70, p < .001). Overall, when the number of encounters was less than the norm, crowding scores averaged 2.02 (i.e., Not at all crowded). When encounters exceeded the norm, respondents felt Slightly to Moderately crowded with an average score of 4.01. Measures of effect size indicated that the strength of this relationship could be characterized as medium (r > .3 to r < .5, n = 35 correlations) to large (r > .5, n = 29 correlations). This pattern of findings was also observed for three predictor variables: type of resource (backcountry versus frontcountry); type of activity (e.g., canoers, hikers, hunters, anglers); and type of encounter (conflict versus no conflict). By contrasting identical measures of the same concepts across a number of activities, resources, and evaluation contexts, the generalizability of the hypothesized relationship is more readily apparent.