Creating, maintaining, and increasing interest in conservation is critical for the sustainability of natural resources. An abundant body of research has explored innate and early childhood experiences known to cultivate conservation behaviors and attitudes. At the same time, forces of urbanization, technology, and poverty act as barriers towards children and adults getting access to nature. In the absence of these experiences, other approaches such as conservation marketing might be deployed to increase awareness and activate conservation behaviors.

This dissertation examined the marketing messages of 14 Arizona conservation organizations. The messages, grouped into 19 separate topics, were tested for their effectiveness and in doing so, conservation mindsets were identified within each topic. These mindsets group people who react to different messages and whose membership transcends conventional demographics or psychographics. The study was conducted with 1900 Arizona resident adults. The test method, conjoint measurement, is a well-known approach embodied in a user-friendly, respondent-friendly, market research approach called Mind Genomics (MG). MG often surpasses traditional market research tools such as surveys and focus groups by uncovering intuitive, almost “gut reactions” to products, services, or events, and to cluster like-minded respondents into segments or mindsets.

The analysis revealed distinct conservation mindsets, for each of the 19 topics, that exhibit different, often opposing reactions to conservation messaging. Methodologically, it acts as a blueprint for a pragmatic approach which might be taken with other conservation projects.