Discordance Within Concordance Among Marine, Recreational Fishermen in the Southeast

Recreational fishermen target and use or reject fish on the basis of a variety of criteria. Many fish caught incidentally are discarded because of myth, rumor, or perceived negative characteristics that mask the positive values of the fish. To discover how fishermen make consumer decisions about saltwater species, we collected judged similarity data in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, analyzing these date with multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and item-by-use matrices. We found that the general perceptions fishermen use to target, use, or discard species were uniform from region to region, but that the specific species which met these broad cognitive criteria varied from region to region. Fish regularly utilized in one region were considered "trashfish" in another. This study demonstrates that, despite general agreement among fishermen, specific decisions based on local information may result in different consumer behaviors toward the same consumer good.

Citation:

Jeffrey Johnson and David Griffith (1986) ,"Discordance Within Concordance Among Marine, Recreational Fishermen in the Southeast", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 13, eds. Richard J. Lutz, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 667.

Advances in Consumer Research Volume 13, 1986      Page 667

DISCORDANCE WITHIN CONCORDANCE AMONG MARINE, RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN IN THE SOUTHEAST

Jeffrey Johnson, East Carolina University

David Griffith, East Carolina University

Recreational fishermen target and use or reject fish on the basis of a variety of criteria. Many fish caught incidentally are discarded because of myth, rumor, or perceived negative characteristics that mask the positive values of the fish. To discover how fishermen make consumer decisions about saltwater species, we collected judged similarity data in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, analyzing these date with multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and item-by-use matrices. We found that the general perceptions fishermen use to target, use, or discard species were uniform from region to region, but that the specific species which met these broad cognitive criteria varied from region to region. Fish regularly utilized in one region were considered "trashfish" in another. This study demonstrates that, despite general agreement among fishermen, specific decisions based on local information may result in different consumer behaviors toward the same consumer good.

For further information, write to:

Dr. David Griffith, Assistant Scientist / Institute for Coastal and Marine Resources / East Carolina University / Greenville, North Carolina 27834

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