Mindfulness and Sustainable Consumption: Evidence from Students in Istanbul

We are consuming more resources than ever, exceeding the planet’s capacity for coming generations. This shows the important role of sustainable consumption for the planet. To understand consumption patterns mindfulness may be regarded as an indicator that helps people gain insight into their true selves, which leads them to stay away from materialistic tendencies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the effects of mindfulness training on the sustainable consumption perceptions of university students. In this qualitative study, a two-month mindfulness training is given and two focus group studies are conducted. Results suggest that mindfulness training has an impact on people’s perceptions related to consumption. The findings of this study can serve as proof for the transformational effect of mindfulness on people’s overall mood and subjective wellbeing. Received: 23 September 2021 / Accepted: 22 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Community-Based Tourism and Local People's Perceptions Towards Conservation

Uganda is among the most bio-diverse countries and a competitive wildlife-based tourism destination in the world. Community-based tourism approach has been adopted in the country's conservation areas as a strategy to ensure that local communities benefit and support wildlife conservation. This chapter analyses local communities' perceptions of conservation and the benefits they get from tourism in Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area. The study reveals that local communities were concerned about loss of protected resources and support their conservation irrespective of the benefits they get from tourism in the conservation area. There is need to design conservation programmes that focus on local community-conservation-benefits nexus which take into consideration the perceived conservation values, strategies for benefit sharing and incorporation of indigenous knowledge systems.

“Good death” – the circumstances in which it would be best for a person to die. The representative survey of Latvian population

The paper analyses the opinions of Latvian residents about the desired/best conditions for person’s death. Our intention was to use the concept of “good death” as it has been described in academic literature on the end of life to describe what circumstances of dying are preferred in Latvian population. A nationally representative survey of Latvian permanent residents (n = 1012) was conducted in October 2020. The obtained answers are analysed in different demographic groups, as well as in connection with other respondents’ perceptions and values. The results of the study show that the possibility of dying in pain and suffering is a major concern for the majority of Latvian society, and a large percentage of people would like to leave their lives in sleep or sudden death. The results of the study also show people’s desire to be in their homes at the time of death, to die in the presence of relatives. The survey shows a statistically significant relationship between people’s perceptions of the desired/best conditions in which to die - “good death” and a range of demographic and social factors. The data of the study carried out provide new information on people’s perceptions of death, highlighting differences in different socio-demographic groups.

Contemporary Mainstream Bengali Movies and Societal Perceptions towards Rape: Legal Perspectives

Incidents like the rape of late have been grabbing the spotlight which is one of the most significant challenges in Bangladesh. This paper aims to assess people's perceptions by establishing a link between movies and society. This paper goes on to discuss people's perceptions of rape as well as how rape is depicted in Bengali films. While addressing how these portrayals affect people's perceptions in general, this research will also address whether or not the filmmakers open themselves up to any social or legal responsibilities to society. As a result, this study sought to examine to extend a film could indeed change a viewer’s perceptions and behavior from a socio-legal context. This paper further briefly discusses the existing laws to prevent rape and censorship rules for Bengali movies. The paper will identify the major setbacks in existing legal instruments and possible legal recourses to address the setbacks.

Perception of security of a tourist destination on the case of the Czech Republic in the year preceding the COVID-19 pandemic

The study aimed to determine what security concerns are taken into account during the selection of a tourist destination. The research data were collected in 2019 from respondents belonging to various age groups (N = 2,065) in the Czech Republic, using online and paper questionnaires. The analysis of answers resulted in the formation of 84 individual concepts, which were subsequently summed into nine categories. They include acute threats, country, economic and political state of the country, environmental characteristics, health and hygiene, personal reasons, religion, social situation in the country and travelling preferences. The results provide an insight into people's perceptions of travel destinations in terms of security and show which issues deter visitors from entering a given country. Such opinions are important to many security agencies that deal with threats against tourists, as well as to those involved in promoting security among tourists.

How Does Actual Inequality Shape People’s Perceptions of Inequality? A Class Perspective

While some scholars suggest that awareness of income inequality is strongest when the actual level of inequality is high, others find that individuals’ awareness of income inequality is largely unresponsive to actual inequality. In this article, we argue that individuals in different social class positions often respond to the actual levels of income inequality distinctively, and therefore a class perspective is essential in understanding how actual inequality and people’s perceptions of it are associated. Using data from the social inequality modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP, 1992, 1999, and 2009) as well as the World Income Inequality Database ( https://www.wider.unu.edu/ ) and the World Inequality Database ( https://wid.world/ ), we consider how actual inequality interacts with social class to shape people’s perceptions of income inequality across 64 country-years between 1992 and 2009. We find that overall, perceptions of inequality are higher among the working class and lower among salariats. However, cross-nationally and over time, as the actual level of inequality increases, working classes become less critical toward inequality, whereas salariats become more critical. The actual level of inequality itself has no impact on people’s discontent toward it. This creates a counterbalancing effect that obscures the aggregate relationship between rising inequality and people’s perceptions of it.

The Influence of Metaphorical Frames on Americans’ Adherence to COVID-19 Public Health Guidelines

Metaphors more-effectively influence people’s perceptions and behavior than normal language. The type of metaphor used is important in maximizing persuasion. Two common public health metaphors are family and war. War metaphors generally evoke more fear than family metaphors, and family metaphors generally evoke more empathy than war metaphors. The current study investigates whether family metaphors are more effective than war metaphors in promoting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines. Participants were assigned to a condition in which they read a single COVID-19-related paragraph. The paragraph included either family, war, or no metaphorical frame. All groups rated the extent to which reading the paragraph would change an average person’s adherence to a variety of public health guidelines. After reading the paragraph, participants reported their perceptions regarding the danger of COVID-19 and their feelings of unity with others to determine whether the metaphor manipulation effectively influenced fear and empathy. There was no observable effect of metaphor type on adherence to public health guidelines. Feelings of unity and fear were not higher, on average, in one group compared to another. Thus, one metaphorical condition or even the presence of a metaphor was not observed to be more effective in changing people’s adherence to public health guidelines. Additionally, the metaphors did not evoke their intended emotions, which may explain the lack of change in behavior. Future research investigating the effect of numbing on metaphor effectiveness may help explain these results and indicate whether metaphors should be used for persuasion in future public health crises.

Hotel Guests’ Psychological Distance of Climate Change and Environment-Friendly Behavior Intention

Climate change is certainly a global problem that negatively affects all nations, and thus all humans, on the globe. Nevertheless, little is known about people’s perceptions of climate change and its effects on people’s attitudinal and behavioral responses to climate change. The present study successfully addressed how hotel guests’ environment-friendly behavior intention is formed through their self-perception as a member of the global community and their psychological distance of climate change. An online survey was used to collect quantitative data from hotel guests to verify the hypotheses. Our test results supported all the hypotheses in our conceptual model. Consequently, the findings of this study satisfactorily explained how hotel guests form their intention to engage in environment-friendly behaviors while they are staying at hotels.

Public Perception of Tourism Cities before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic through the Lens of User-Generated Content

The COVID-19 pandemic (coronavirus disease of 2019) sent the world into disarray and devastated the global tourism economy. In 2020 alone, the number of international tourists dropped by roughly 1.1 billion. This study examines user-generated content (UGC) on social media to elucidate the shift in people’s perceptions of popular tourism cities from before the pandemic to during the pandemic. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the cues in tourism-city-related UGC (particularly those related to the pandemic) and identifies the cues that resonate most with the public. This paper collected the data using Instagram’s application programing interface and then sorted the UGC based on content, type, time, likes, share, and comments. Between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2019, it collected a total of 207,752 pre-pandemic posts and 173,131 peri-pandemic posts. The findings reveal that, during the pandemic, the interactivity of city-related UGC dropped, and only pandemic-related keywords gained public attention. By comparison, pre-pandemic positive posts mentioned local features and contained calls to action that were generally well-received. The findings also validate that UGC effectively reflects and enhances overall public perceptions, suggesting that, in a future which is forced to co-exist with SARS-CoV-2 in the long term, it is important to understand the positive and negative influences of UGC on tourism cities.