| Summary: | <p> The act of thru-hiking a long-distance trail immerses hikers in the natural world for an extended time; as such, it represents a compelling system to study the relationships between a specific appreciative activity—thru-hiking—and environmental attitudes regarding sustainability. This thesis critically explored the primary research question: How do thru-hikes change or inspire environmental attitudes in thru-hikers on long-distance trails in the United States? I employed the revised NEP scale to survey 98 thru-hikers using snowball sampling and I interviewed a subset to gain more in-depth knowledge. In addition, I textually analyzed the blogs written by thru-hikers. Findings suggest that environmental attitudes of thru-hikers already leaned in an ecocentric direction before thru-hiking and after thru-hiking, their environmental attitudes became more so. Furthermore, this thesis finds that women had more ecocentric views than men before and after thru-hiking and that more ecocentric attitude change occurred for thru-hikers in their twenties than other age groups. Thru-hikers also chose to express their environmental views through conversations and their actions. And thus, thru-hikes on long-distance trails in the United States have the potential to strengthen and/or reinforce existing ecocentric attitudes in thru-hikers.</p>
|
|---|
