Generalizing the Encounter--Norm--Crowding Relationship

Abstract Theory predicts that when encounters exceed a visitor's norm for seeing others, crowding will increase. This article examines this relationship using data from 13 different studies ( n = 10,697) that included both high- and low-density study sites, and 12 different activities. Measures of recreation encounters asked respondents to indicate the number of people they remembered seeing in different contexts. Crowding was measured using a 9-point Likert scale. An indicator of the individual's tolerance norm was obtained by asking respondents to specify the highest number of encounters they would tolerate for a given situation. As hypothesized, perceived crowding was significantly higher for individuals indicating more encounters than their norm ( t = 12.70, p .3 to r < .5, n = 35 correlations) to large ( r S .5, n = 29 correlations). This pattern of findings was also observed for three predictor variables: type of resource (backcountry versus frontcountry); type of activity (e.g., canoers, hikers, hunters, anglers); and type of encounter (conflict versus no conflict). By contrasting identical measures of the same concepts across a number of activities, resources, and evaluation contexts, the generalizability of the hypothesized relationship is more readily apparent. Keywords: Encounters Crowding Norms