RESUMO
An important rationale for legally-farmed and synthetic wildlife products are that they reduce illegal wild-sourced trade by supplying markets with sustainable alternatives. For this to work, more established illegal-product consumers must switch to legal alternatives than new legal-product consumers drawn to illegal wild products. Despite widespread debate on the magnitude and direction of switching, studies among actual consumers are lacking. We used an anonymous online survey of 1421 Traditional Chinese Medicine consumers in China to investigate switching between legal farmed, synthetic, and illegal wild bear bile. We examined past consumption behaviour, and applied a discrete choice experiment framed within worsening hypothetical disease scenarios, using latent class models to investigate groups with shared preferences. Bear bile consumers (86% respondents) were wealthier, more likely to have family who consumed bile, and less knowledgeable about bile treatments than non-consumers. Consumer preferences were heterogenous but most consumers preferred switching between bile types as disease worsened. We identified five distinct latent classes within our sample: 'law-abiding consumers' (34% respondents), who prefer legal products and were unlikely to switch; two 'all-natural consumer' groups (53%), who dislike synthetics but may switch between farmed and wild products; and two 'non-consumer' groups (12%) who prefer not to buy bile. People with past experience of bile consumption had different preferences than those without. Willingness to switch to wild products was related to believing they were legal, although the likelihood of switching was mediated by preferences for cheaper products sold in legal, familiar places. We show that consumers of wild bile may switch, given the availability of a range of legal alternatives, while legal-product consumers may switch to illegal products if the barriers to doing so are small. Understanding preferences that promote or impede switching should be a key consideration when attempting to predict consumer behaviour in complex wildlife markets. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Wildlife consumer characteristics and preferences determine their likelihood and direction of switching between legal and illegal products.
RESUMO
Examined the laboratory playroom behavior of 36 normal mother-child dyads during a competitive game in which the mothers gave periodic instructions to their children. The dyads were equally divided into a control group, and two experimental groups in which mothers were taught to use positive parenting in the form of mirroring or praise. The game activity was videotaped and observers coded rates of child compliance, maternal instructions, mirroring and praise, and the mothers' overall responsiveness to their children's full repertoire of behaviors. After the game, mothers and children were interviewed separately to assess their satisfaction with the game interaction. Results showed higher percentages of child compliance and higher ratings of dyadic satisfaction for the experimental groups. However, maternal responsiveness proved to be the only significant predictor of these dependent measures, suggesting that mirroring and praise are specific markers for a more complex parenting process. Implications of these results for parenting practices and parent training are discussed.
