Table 1. Variables used to explore the psychological basis of acceptance capacity for tigers in Sundarbans-border villages.
Table shows the response options for each variable and the percentage survey respondents selecting each of these (N = 385 unless specified).
| Variable | Response Scales and Percentage of Respondents Selecting Each Response Item | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tolerance | Increase a lot | Increase a little | Stay the Same | Decrease a little | Decrease a lot | Don’t know |
| 26.0 | 20.5 | 31.2 | 16.4 | 6.0 | 0.0 | |
| Direct Tiger Experience a | HHM killed (3) | Respondent or HHM injured (2) | HH’s livestock attacked (1) | No experience (0) | — | — |
| 26.0 | 22.1 | 26.0 | 26.1 | — | — | |
| Indirect Tiger Experience a,b | Body Collection (3) | Stray tiger (2) | Stories (1) | No indirect experience (0) | — | — |
| 44.4 | 51.2 | 3.1 | 1.3 | — | — | |
| Beliefs | Strongly agree | Slightly agree | Unsure | Disagree slightly | Strongly Disagree | — |
| Tigers benefit people by protecting the Sundarbans | 87.0 | 6.2 | 3.9 | 1.3 | 1.6 | — |
| Tigers benefit people by attracting tourists to the area | 58.7 | 18.4 | 15.3 | 2.1 | 5.5 | — |
| Tigers are good animals | 44.2 | 6.2 | 5.2 | 7.3 | 37.1 | — |
| Tigers should be protected | 81.3 | 11.7 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 3.6 | — |
| Current Tiger Population Trend | Increasing a lot | Increasing a little | Staying the same | Deceasing a little | Decreasing a lot | Don’t know c |
| 30.6 | 26.0 | 11.4 | 25.5 | 3.9 | 2.6 | |
| Tiger Incident Frequency d | Commonly | Occasionally | Rarely | Never | Don’t know c | — |
| Attacks on people in village | 1.8 | 41.8 | 30.1 | 26.2 | 0.0 | — |
| Livestock depredation in village | 6.2 | 55.6 | 22.3 | 15.8 | 0.0 | — |
| Tiger in village | 3.9 | 51.9 | 35.8 | 8.3 | 0.0 | — |
| Attacks on people in forest | 27.3 | 61.8 | 9.6 | 0.0 | 1.3 | — |
| Livestock depredation in forest | 15.8 | 41.3 | 11.9 | 29.4 | 1.6 | — |
| Tiger Incident Trend d | Increasing a lot | Increasing a little | Staying the same | Deceasing a little | Decreasing a lot | Don’t know c |
| Attacks on people in village (284) | 2.9 | 8.6 | 11.9 | 31.7 | 18.7 | 0.0 |
| Livestock depredation in village (324) | 14.9 | 7.8 | 12.7 | 41.8 | 16.9 | 0.0 |
| Tiger in village (353) | 3.9 | 8.8 | 14.3 | 39.5 | 25.2 | 0.0 |
| Attacks on people in forest (266) | 17.1 | 14.0 | 17.4 | 39.5 | 10.6 | 0.0 |
| Livestock depredation in forest (380) | 4.9 | 6.2 | 16.6 | 32.7 | 8.3 | 0.3 |
| Affective Risk Perception | High | Medium | Low | None | — | — |
| 15.6 | 30.4 | 5.5 | 47.8 | — | — | |
a Experience types were ranked based on their likely negative physical, emotional and/or psychological impacts. For each scale the most severe experience received the highest rank score (rank scores provided in parentheses). Each respondent was categorised according to their most severe direct and indirect tiger-related experience (i.e. the respondent’s highest ranking experience on each scale). HH: Household; HHM: Household Member.
b Body collection: respondent has collected the body of at least one tiger victim from the forest; Village tiger: respondent believes that a tiger hasentered their village on at least one occasion; Stories: respondent has heard stories about people and/or livestock from their village being attacked by tigers.
c ‘Don’t know’ and ‘unsure’ responses were classed as missing data in the SEM data analyses; a maximum likelihood (ML) algorithm was used to estimate all missing values in the dataset [52,55].
d Trend and frequency scores combined to create a cognitive risk perception index for each incident type. The incident trend question was not applicable to those respondents who had stated that the incident type ‘never’ occurred in preceding frequency questions. N for each trend variable in parentheses.