Use encounter standards and curves for achieved privacy in wilderness

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between wilderness use encounters and degree of privacy achieved at three locations within a wilderness. The theoretical perspective of the research was grounded in environmental psychology, which emphasized the dynamic nature of person and situation fit, rather than the sociology of normative behavior. The study depicted privacy as a dependent measure and argued that privacy is not the opposite of perceived crowding. It also suggested that privacy may be a more appropriate dependent variable for encounter studies than those measures used in past recreation research. Privacy was operationalized as ‘'the level of desired privacy achieved,’’ measured on a 10‐point scale. It was then compared with level of actual, ideal, and maximum use encounters for 600 users of a South Carolina wilderness area. Results indicated that number of actual group encounters was inversely related to degree of desired privacy achieved, in the hypothesized inverse curve pattern anticipated but never proved for satisfaction research. Encounter‐privacy curves for ideal and maximum encounter levels also resulted in predicted patterns. Finally, degree of privacy achieved was negatively affected when ideal and maximum encounters were exceeded by actual encounters, showing a high degree of congruency between theorized and empirical findings.