Purism revisited: Specifying recreational conditions of concern according to resource intent

Understanding differences in recreational users, activities, and resource choices is essential to balanced management of outdoor recreation resources. Measures of purism (one's attitudinal orientation toward an ideal) facilitate this understanding for wilderness recreation but have been superseded by the related concept of recreation specialization. Purism is revisited to determine if it is still useful in understanding differences in recreationists. Stankey's (1972) Purism scale and specific wilderness condition measures were administered by questionnaire to recreational users of a designated wilderness. Results indicated that purism was significantly related to different levels of concern for wilderness condition domains defined as human impacts, natural features, solitude, management confinement, and primitive travel conditions. It was concluded that measuring the alignment of one's attitudes with intended resources and their use is essential to understanding attitudinal aspects of recreational experiences and aids recreation management in wilderness