Ocean imagery relates to an individual's cognitions and pro-environmental behaviours

Abstract The coming decade will bring new challenges to marine management, governance and conservation. Understanding people's relationship with this environment is fundamental for guiding scientists and decision makers. This article deconstructs mental ocean imagery and explores how these images relate to one's marine value orientations, personal norms, emotional involvement (fear), attitudes toward marine sustainable use of resources, acceptability for ocean use, and pro-environmental behaviours. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire across coastal communities on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. We used a word-association technique to elicit ocean images. Frequency analyses revealed beautiful, fishing, cold, pollution and vast as the most cited images. Through an inductive exploratory content analysis, we identified psychological impression, place identity, utilitarian, environmentalist and naturalist as the main theme dimensions. Correlation analyses found that mental images correlate with the way people feel, think and act toward the ocean. Demographic characteristics had a significant effect on some of the images: psychological impression was higher among women and older generations, whereas naturalist was higher among young people. Environmental related images were higher in urban areas. Findings expanded our knowledge on how people imagine the ocean and shows the ambivalence of human nature (i.e., admiring and fearing the ocean while exploring its vastness and resources and understanding its fragility and decay caused by humans).