Social Psychology for Understanding Recreational Fishers and Fisheries

Social psychology is a diverse sub-discipline in psychology and sociology concerned with the effects of the social and physical environment on individuals’ cognitions and behaviours. The human dimensions literature has a long history of adopting and extending concepts from social psychology to understand the cognitions and behaviours of recreational fishers, and the well-being outcomes of participation. In this chapter, we present a novel integrated conceptual model of the fishing experience from the perspective of social psychology. We use this model to review and synthesize the relevant literature on social psychology as applied to understand recreational fishers. Key elements of the model, and our review, include the cognitive antecedents of fishers’ preferences for fishing experiences, the relation between preference, intention, and behaviour, and the post-behavioural well-being outcomes of fishing participation.