Essay review
Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Research (AHTR)
An International Journal of Akdeniz University Tourism Faculty
ISSN: 2147-9100 (Print), 2148-7316 (Online)
Webpage: http://www.ahtrjournal.org/
2016
Vol. 4 (1)
52-69
TOURISM IN A WORLD OF RISKS
Maximiliano E KORSTANJE 1
University of Palermo, ARGENTINA
Geoffrey SKOLL
Buffalo State College, US
Ashley SCHROEDER
University of Florida, US
Lori PENNINGTON-GRAY
University of Florida, US
Maite Echarri CHAVEZ
University of La Habana, CUBA
ABSTRACT
Though tourism combines curiosity with security, over the
recent decades, we are facing an inflation of risks that
caused big problems for policy makers and officials
interested in promoting tourism in their respective nations.
As a result of this, one might speculate that the future of
industry is uncertain. This essay review explores the
already existent literature in risk perception applied on
tourism fields as well as introduces the theory of
attachment to explain how the world is constructed.
1
Keywords
Risk
Dangers
Tourism
Mobility
Attachment
Address correspondence to Maximiliano E KORSTANJE, Department of Economics, University of
Palermo, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA. E-mail: maxikorstanje@arnet.com.ar
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INTRODUCTION
The technological breakthroughs accelerated the expansion of tourism and
hospitality industries, paving the pathways for millions of travellers to
enjoy beautiful and exotic destinations. Important legal rights were issued
to grant the right to paid holidays Lash & Urry,
Clavé,
. The
current notion of mobility was conducive to the consolidation of trade
worldwide. In this context, tourism scholars agree that not only do we
dwell in a mobile world, but current technologies help make travel safe
and pleasurable (Coles & Hall, 2006; Vanhove, 2012). Despite improved
security, many people have serious problems in planning their holidays,
because they suffer from phobias, anxiety, and other psychological
disorders that reduce the pleasure of touring (Burnham, 2007).
Particularly, the attacks to World Trade Centre (WTC) in September 11
were accompanied with a set of diverse risks, dangers that shocked public
opinion. Virus outbreaks, quakes and tsunamis, as well as terrorism wreak
havoc in the social trust tourism needs to prosper. Further, media and the
velocity of replication proper of TV work as faster conduits of terror in the
developed societies than other times.
The fear of traveling seems to be one such issue remains
unexplored in the specialized literature. However, history offers a lot of
testimonies and substantial evidence that proofs travels are experiences
that wakes up higher levels of anxiety. The Roman historian, Gaius
Suetonius Tranquilus (c.70-130 CE), remarks in his biographies that the
Emperor Augustus refused to travel in storms after a lightning strike
nearly took his life during one of his trips (Suetonius, 1985: 104). No
matter the culture or time, the act of traveling not only is an act of trust,
but also represents a moment of anxiety since the traveler goes into the
unknown. Historically, ancient social institutions, such as hospitality,
resulted from the need to control uncertainty (Goody, 1995). This old
covenant was often celebrated to weave alliances among ancient tribes to
constitute a mutual defense to protect travelers. Since the host does not
know the interests of guest and vice-versa, hospitality mitigates the fear in
any traveler´s mind Korstanje,
a . The present essay review is
double-fold. On one hand it is aimed at discussion the limitations and
approaches of risk perception theory as it has been formulated and
applied in tourism fields. Secondly, it provides with fresh conceptual
alternatives to understand how our system of exploration works. In so
doing, the theory of attachment represents a fertile ground to be applied to
empirical research.
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CONCEPTUAL DISCUSSION
Sociologically, the act of traveling is based on trust. Whenever the subject
abandons its home, it is subject to the liminality of uncertainness. Tourists
not only are unfamiliar with the landscape they gaze, but should be
protected from any external aggression. Then, the quest of novelty
corresponds with the needs of discovering new sensations that help
revitalizing the mind from frustrated oppression of working life.
However, security plays a crucial role in order for tourist can maximize
their pleasure. In a climate of controlled-risk, tourism needs from
hospitality to bolster a fluid dialogue between tourist-delivering and
receiving societies. Though it was a peace-builder, recently a set of
different exigencies put tourism in a precarious position. The onset of the
twenty-first century brought disasters, virus outbreaks, and terrorist
attacks. They created a strong sense of uncertainty and instability that
directly affected the tourism and hospitality businesses. The contributions
of Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992) were recovered from the dust of oblivion
and cited by many researchers and policy makers (McCartney, 2008). The
ephemeral logic of tourism or prosumption as Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010)
observed, is based on the individual experience. Although tourism seems
to be a resilient industry, no less true is that it is sensible to the upsurge of
crises and many other bad advertising. This is the reason why Hall,
Timothy and Duval (2003) call attention to a new kind of understanding of
risk and communication which depends on the media and other
uncontrollable variables. They raise the question of how much safety is
associated with poverty or social resentment. They say that a priority
should be the formation of committees of crises to propose an allencompassing evaluation of risks (Hall et al., 2003: 8-16). Studies of risk
have posed as a priority for policy makers over last decades. This happens
because we are living a state of inflation respecting to risk perception.
The Study of Risks in Tourism
Studies of risk in tourism have adopted two different positions. One uses
the socio-demographic variables of tourists, while the other focuses on
their psychology. For present purposes we review only the
psychologically oriented studies. Certainly, both voices have limitations
and assertions. On one hand, risks should be conceived within a culture
which gives shape. For example, some Mexican aborigines who live
alongside a volcano do not feel they are in an imminent danger despite the
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several alarms issued by scientists. For their cosmology, disasters are
resulted from the God´s rage by the introduction of western technology to
measures quakes and volcano activity. This scenario contrasts with
Western culture where risk is previously identified and reduced by
modern science. This suggests that risk perception varies by culture and
time. Detractors of cultural explanation of risk explain that there are
arithmetical models that can predict risks before they take room, no matter
than culture or perception. This point of entry in the discussion alludes to
the idea that risk exists irrespective to subjective perception. Even, in some
contexts, fear allows the preservation of organism in the same way in
humans like in animals. However, why these fears evolve diverse
meaning according to individual cognitive structure is what cannot be
explained with accuracy. To put this in bluntly, while some of us have
frightened by storms days, others avoids spiders. There are not
mathematical models that can infer on the subjective world of peoples.
This is exactly what leads Plog (1973; 1991) to draw an innovative system
of exploration, which was originally financed by airline companies. This
was aimed to explain why some tourists showed extreme fear of flying.
He found that some passengers are afraid of traveling because of their
character structure. Plog´s model involves three factors the attachment to
territory, anxiety, and impotence. Following a continuum, Plog (1973;
1991) establishes three behavioral types for adaption to the environment.
The alo-centric type seeks out new places and customs. The psycho-centric
type is oriented toward ritual and fears new situations. The mid-centric
type is a mixture of alo and psycho-centric types. Plog (1973; 1991) argues
that fear of flying is the adaptive behavior of people who have a strong
attachment to territory. Though he was widely criticized because of a lack
of rigor in the construction of the subtypes (Hoxter-Lee & Lester, 1988;
Castaño,
, Plog (1973; 1991) paved the way for the advance of
other studies that looked at anxiety as the main factor in risk perception.
Reisinger and Mavondo (2005) noted that there is a high correlation
between risk perception and the degree of anxiety a person may feel. They
found that tolerance of uncertainty seems to play a vital role in threat
perception. Aversion to risk is associated with low levels of tolerance
before uncertainty. Lepp and Gibson (2008) explain that the tourist trip
presents two contrasting tendencies: the quest for novelty and risk
aversion. Taking their cue from the advances of Plog (1973; 1991), they
hold that the type of personality correlates with the behavior of tourists.
Those tourists who have developed a sensation-seeking type accept new
sensations while minimizing awareness of risk (Lepp & Gibson, 2008). A
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study based on a large sample formed by 1,180 visitors coming from 14
different countries, reveals that risks are invoked at the time of decision
making process. At a first glance, hazards such as SARS or earthquakes
represent bad marketing. What Kozak, Crotts, and Law (2007) discovered
is that some destinations seem not to be affected by risk while others
collapse as tourist destinations. The tolerance of uncertainty is vital in
trying to understand tourist behavior (Kozak et al., 2007). One of the
conceptual limitations of this research, however, is the ignorance of how
emotions affect the construction of personality. Anxiety cuts through the
biography of an individual. We are unable to operationalize anxiety at
different levels. Also, researchers misjudge the role of anxiety in character
formation. It operates beyond the autonomy of social variables such as
age, income, or gender. To solve this problem, Weng-Bin, Ming-Hsu and
Chien-Lung (2009) say that mood is sensitive to the fear of traveling. For
example, their study shows how those passengers who suffer sadness tend
to minimize risks less than anxious personalities. The sense of
hopelessness and depression is related to a disengagement of the self from
the environment (Weng-Bin et al., 2009).
Other valuable studies focused on the connection of psychological
structure and risk perception. The evaluation of tourist destination is
given not only the atmosphere of risk, which sometimes is shaped by the
media, but also by the subject adaptation to that risk (Aschauer, 2010). In
this token, Fuchs, Uriely, and Reichel (2013) suggest that the situation of
dangers may be politically manipulated as disciplinary mechanism of
control. Starting from the premise, the act of traveling request from trust,
to cross over the boundaries between the certainness and uncertainness,
the political ideology plays a vital role in explaining why some
destinations are preferred over others. This means that if travelers
ideology is compatible with socialist countries, there would have no
internal discrepancies to visit China or Cuba, while more capitalist
countries would be avoided.
Tourism literature agrees that experts and lay people have
contrasting types of risk perception. Experts tend to make correct
evaluations of possible hazards. Lay people go into a panic because of
biased conceptions of risks (Sjoberg, 1999; Krewski, Turner, Lemyre, &
Lee, 2012). TA parallel may apply by to tour operators or travel agents
who are familiar with the pitfalls and problems of a trip. Wang, Jao, Chan
and Chung (2010) conducted research with 310 tour guides and tour
leaders coming from 75 different agencies in Taiwan. To correct the classic
texts such as Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992) and Wang et al. (2010) criticized
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abstract categories which cannot be contextually adapted. They also point
out that many researchers use students who have no familiarity or
experience with the fieldwork. It is important to classify risk according to
its nature. Some risks are inherent in the tourists decisions while others
are external. Tourists tend see more danger in those risks where their
personal safety is at stake (Wang et al., 2010). Though this wave obtained
good outcomes that helped policy makers to understand the complex
world of consumers, some voices have criticized this theory by some
epistemological problems.
Risk Perception and Its Radical View
From psychology, Larsen (2007) criticizes risk perception theory because it
misjudges the difference between worries and risks. Since worry is a
cognitive construal of autonomous of experience, there is no reason to
assume risks influence decision making. The probabilities of having an
accident on roads may be a primary risk for tourists although it does not
represent any worry for them. Worries trigger emotions that help
recognition of a threat (Larsen, 2007). Behind the sphere of cognition,
worries involve internal sentiments and emotions which are activated by
uncertainty (Larsen, 2009). Traumatic experiences from the past create a
conditioning effect to sensitize people to adverse situations. A recent
investigation by Vastfjall, Peters and Slovic (2008) evinced that disasters
and trauma create negative moods. Reminders of the possibility of a new
disaster reduce the horizon of perception. This negative mood varies
according to the previous experiences of the subject. For example, those
who have suffered a tragedy develop a stable negative perspective on life
while others who did not experience the same situation ignore the alarm
signals (Vastfjall et al., 2008). These observations have been refuted by
Hunter (2006) who has made a study based on the experience of 369 pilots.
Those who had suffered situations of danger consider that air transport is
safer than others who had not lived through a similar experience (Hunter,
2006). However, sometimes the conditions of trauma may be replicated to
achieve political loyalties. It is unfortunate classic techniques and
instruments for collating information as questionnaires, formal interviews
do not work for Trauma issues. Therefore, risk perception theory has not
advanced in this direction in recent years. In perspective, the problems for
interpreting the outcomes derive from intrusive methods such as
questionnaires and closed-ended interviews (Slovic, 1987; Slovic & Weber,
2002; Korstanje, 2013). These outcomes are not complemented by
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qualitative methods to reach alternative viewpoints. The current state of
art in risk-related research would be enriched if qualitative views are
adopted by researchers. In this vein, the present paper wants to fill that
gap (Korstanje, 2010b; 2010c; 2011a; 2011b; 2012; Korstanje & Clayton,
2012).
Risk perception theory shows some limitations which merit to be
discussed in this section. At a first glance, there is not clear definition of
what a risk means. Though perception is inherited to the cognitive
structure of mind, not all personalities develop a risk-avoidance attitude.
Adventure tourism monopolized the experience of those who are prone to
face risky activities (Buckley, 2007). Most certainly, risk confers to tourists
a veil of status because they dared to face the danger. They become
exceptional in many senses, following the archetype of heroism. This is
exactly what some fieldworker noted in Japan. In this country, a
dangerous dish as frightful globefish is over-valorized by diners who pay
exorbitant sums of money. Beyond its taste, what makes these fish much
more attractive than other dishes seems to be the peligrosity of its poison.
A second point which limited the risk-studies is the used methodology to
conduct the fieldwork. Based on open or closed-administered
questionnaires, risk research evinces the correlation among variables.
However, correlation is often prone to measure a phenomenon. Far from
being descriptive, for example, one might speculate that genre keeps
certain correlation with risk perception. This belief leads to researchers to
admit that males perceive fewer risks than females. In view of that, larger
samples may validate the outcome, but if fieldworkers delve into this
correlation, they find contradictory evidences. Women are educated not
only to care the family, but also by alarming men about the potential
hazards. Likewise, men are socialized to repress their sentiments, facing
risky situations. In other terms, their archetype of masculinity is
jeopardized whether they fears are acknowledged. Manning (1989)
recognizes the importance of understanding that social practice is
embedded in a structure whereby discourse is articulated. Understanding
how the narratives of safety are orchestrated, over-rated or silenced,
researchers can get a more profound idea of the object of study. This is the
reason why questionnaires and interviews alone are not useful in
understanding social issues.
Another additional problem lies in the fact that sometimes there is a
dichotomy between what interviewees say and do. One of the
contradictions of positivism consists in the acceptance of what people say
as an objective source of scientific validation. Let s explain my own
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experience in the field when I entered to study Cromañon`s tragedy in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. During my fieldwork, a teenager came to me one
day to explain me further on the problem I was investigating. I accepted
his invitation assuming he had much to say. The interview lasted roughly
5 hours and was tape-recorded. The information I obtained from this
young was very important for me at a preliminary stage. Nonetheless,
with the passing of months I have advanced my ethnography comparing
the collated information by what I can hear and see. Not only I realized
that the original interview was completely false, because the involved keyinformant wanted to attract attention and exaggerated his stories, but he
felt the needs to tell something to me. The importance of this story was
not determined by its credibility. He had not lost anyone in the disaster of
Cromañon, though developed a strange attachment for the event, for the
other´s suffering. This empathy led him to alter his sense of reality.
Paradoxically, although this interview was a fake, it underpinned the
main hypotheses in my research opening the doors to new cosmologies
and opportunities to be empirically validated. This story though false shed
light on my investigation. Douglas and Wildavsky (1983) have written a
seminal book teaching how good investigation can be done in the fields of
risk perception. Douglas, a pioneer scholar interested in exploring the
connection of fear, evil, and risk, argued that psychological fear represents
an attempt to react when faced with a hostile situation. To some extent,
the preservation of culture is at stake in contexts of uncertainty or
instability. When socialized, fear unites a society. Without fear, Douglas
added, societies would experience substantial fragmentation (Douglas,
1992). In subsequent studies, Douglas (1992) developed a new thesis
arguing that risk, danger, and sin are intertwined social constructs. Sin
and risk give further legitimacy to the status quo, which would otherwise
discredit privileged groups if they did not give solutions to lay people.
Risk and sin both provide rationalizations for how the world works. The
potentiality of threat confers legitimacy for social solidarity and status
hierarchies (Douglas, 1992).
Waterton and Wynne (2001) conducted an investigation in towns
such as Sellafield (UK), which are next to nuclear plants. Under some
conditions, inhabitants at risk of dangerous exposure intellectualize their
situation, repressing their fear and displacing it or negating it with
sentiments such as pride and stoicism to rationalize their persistence in a
dangerous place. This reveals that risk may confer strong attachments of
identity where real dangers become a criterion of status and social
distinction. Unless the qualitative view is introduced in risk perception
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research, biased diagnoses may lead scholars to inaccurate or partial
explanations.
Third, risk-research looks to propose alternative courses of action to
mitigate risks, ignoring what Giddens
called the paradoxical
condition of risk . Policies waged to prevent potential risks. In this sense,
Beck (1992) has explored the contradiction of technology which originally
used to make from this world a safer place, prompted the Chernobyl`s
nightmare. He has argued that modernity opened new global risks, which
were alien to the medieval world view. Chernobyl in the Ukraine was the
symbolic of the role played by technology in fabricating new risks. In
”eck s view (Beck, 1992), technology had helped enhance security, but
today it generates new and dire risks that threaten human existence. In
”eck s risk society (Beck, 1992) the old modes of production, which
fabricated commodities, have turned into methods that produce risks.
Parallel to Beck (1992), Giddens (1991) acknowledged globalization as a
project based on two key factors. The first is that money has come to serve
as a mechanism of connecting presence with absences, or needs with their
satisfaction throughout the world. The second element is a network of
experts, who not only evaluate potential risks but also devise ways for
mitigating risks. Starting from the premise that experts monopolize the
trust of lay people, for Giddens, risk is what society creates to sustain its
efficient functioning (Giddens, 1991). In contrast to Beck (1992) and
Giddens (1991), Luhmann (1993) criticized the discourse of risk because it
prompts an unabated alarmism that alters the public consciousness.
Unfortunately, Beck (1992) did not contemplate the distinction between
risk and threat. While risk signifies a previous decision by the self, threat
refers to something external to the self. A terrorist attack, an airplane
accident, or natural disasters are threats, since the victims have no way to
reverse the situation. The passengers in an airplane crash have no way of
avoiding the harm. In contrast, for the air travel company owner, who
opted to reduce costs, the accidents are a risk. Generally, those who make
the decision are generators of risks. They are not the same as those who
face the risks (Luhmann, 1993). Is an airplane accident a responsibility of
passengers or a charge over the company? The discourse of risk is woven
in order for elite not to be interpelated by citizenship. That way, risk is
often conceived as a problem of victims. The success of the management
consists in controlling and reversing the risks other generated. In so doing,
the agent assumes the responsibility for decisions made in other circles
(Sennett, 2011).
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In this token, Richardson (2010) contends that threats which
jeopardize society are introduced in the social system by means of
knowledge. Risk, in these terms, would be the efforts to intellectualize the
future by offsetting costs and benefits. The final decision made on the
possibility to face or avoid the damage is given by the degree of
contingency, with respect to the problem to be solved (Richardson, 2010).
This seems to be the reason why technology designed to mitigate risks
under some conditions of uncertainty, generates new risks.
Last but not least, the media coverage of risky situations can lead to
forge ethno-centric viewpoints, where the Other is portrayed as
dangerous, a potential source for terrorism mushrooming. A seminal text,
edited by Professor Mahmoud Eid (2014) draws the attention on the role
played by the media in the coverage of terrorist attacks. Recently, AlBaghdadi the Commander in Chief of IS (Islamic State) proclaimed the
jihad against the luxury centers of mass-consumption, tourist resorts
and places of recreation worldwide. Undoubtedly, this exhibits not only
the concerns of West since its style of life was in jeopardy, but what is
presented as the hallmark of its supremacy over other cultures. A second
problem relates to the fact that there is a dependency of media to cover
terrorist attacks. This begs some more than interesting questions, is the
media conducive to terror-tactics? Is this terror used to manipulate
internally the citizens?
Eid (2014) introduces a new term, terroredia to denote a connection
between terrorism and media. Not only terrorists have fluency in English
to disseminate a message to audiences (even many of them are English
native speakers which reveals a crisis in the modern world), but also they
are cognizant with the digital technologies as websites, Facebook and
other social networks. As many other forms of violence, terrorism appeals
to captivate the attention of modern nation states. Terrorism has become
in a commodity which gives further legitimacy to professional politicians.
The war on terror, post 9/11, attempted to confront with the needs of
struggling against an invisible enemy. As a result of this, terrorism
engulfed as a part of postmodern politics. The US obsession for terrorism,
as well as its tactics in counter-terrorism seems to feed back an unending
atmosphere of fear. The struggle against terrorism should embrace ethics
as the main flagship. Otherwise, West will fall in a campaign of
demonization where the non-white Other will be silenced. “s
Mahmoud Eid (2014) puts it, we are educated to imagine terrorism is a
criminal act while media are a positive phenomenon. Both sides are being
helped each other, simply because the treatment of media facilitates the
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terrorist to achieve their goals, while the perpetration of attacks gives
substantial content and debate to journalism. Understanding terrorism as
a try of communicating a violent message, this project exerts a
considerable criticism to free-value media. The mediatization of terrorism
corresponds with a tactic further beneficial for terrorists than
governments. The main thesis in Eid`s book (Eid, 2014) is that terrorism
and media s swamp is explained by the co-dependency to fabricate
oxygen . Without terror, both parties would be never benefited as now
they are (Eid, 2014).
Far from its valuable advance, risk perception theory today is
unable to explain why some personalities are open to new experiences,
while others are closed. Quite aside from this discussion, psychology and
anthropology have much to say in the ways the system of exploration,
fixed in the early stage of infants, marks our sense of security, even when
we are touring.
The Secure-Base and Attachment Theory
The legacy of psychoanalysis has persisted in the epistemology of social
sciences from its inception. Though discredited by the falsacionism ,
physchonalisis evidenced an attachment between the child and its mother,
as a most significant axiom of the discipline (Schur, 1960; Winnicott, 1960;
Spitz, 1969; Freud, 1995). Depending on how this bondage evolved, the
psychological system as well as the intra-psychic energy works. In
Freudian terms, an extreme fear as phobia, exhibits the combination of
contrasting feelings which threaten to disorganize the personality. By
avoiding the frightening object, the ego can better integrate the
personality. In other terms, the phobia works as a catalyst to protect the
ontology of mind (Freud, 1998). In fact, psychoanalysis and anthropology
were historically interlinked. Not only Freud was cognizant with
anthropological studies, but also both disciplines share epistemological
concerns such as,
The study and qualitative methods to interpret events, not as they
happened but as they are symbolized by men.
The qualitative viewpoint serves to infer the gaps between what
people do and say. Field-working is a valid attempt to be there
watching human behaviors.
A heuristic logic of the theory.
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Methodologically, psychoanalysis discovered that many of
attitudes, beliefs and behaviors are determined by patterns which can be
studied and observed. These patterns associate to experiences faced
during the early-stage of the infant. Though the child-mother bondage is
not determinant for Freud, it paves the ways for experimental studies
which were organized by Bowlby (1986) to present an innovative thesis.
Working in the object relations school of psychoanalytic ego psychology,
he (1986) created a new conceptual model to understand the influence of
the mother during the life span. He demonstrated the connection between
attachment and the ego, but also the importance of the symbolic
connection of mother and her child. From birth, the child seeks security
through proximity with its parents. Depending how its needs are
addressed, the child will develop a sense of security along a continuum.
For Bowlby (1986; 1989), the attachment, which can be observed in
ethological studies of non-human animals, corresponds with a biological
bond that serves as a protection against (Bowlby, 1986; 1989). The smile
between the child and its primary caretaker is the primary form of
symbolic communication, which establishes a bridge of trust. This nonverbal communication stage begins with exchanges that create a strong
emotional bond (Crain, 2015). In his preliminary work, Bowlby (1986;
1989) takes up a polemic within the psychoanalytic circles. He opposed the
classic view of maternal attachments in which breast loss is sufficient to
explain the disorganization of personality. Instead, according to him, it is
the possibility of losing the mother s love that is important for the child.
Freud (1960) replied that personality is not determined only by the first
days of infants. She pointed out that we perceive things in different ways
depending on our stage of maturation. How does Bowlby (1986; 1989)
validate his observations?
Even if Bowlby (1960; 1986; 1989) never conducted empirical
research with children, other cases and published-working papers served
to orchestrate his theory. Ainsworth (1979) conducted an experiment in
nurseries school in Africa and US. Per her observations, children
manifested diverse symptoms according to the time they were attached to
their mothers. She found that children developed diverse behavior
according to the separation with their mothers. The timing of separation
was of paramount importance to understand each type of reaction. Two
types were proposed by Ainsworth (1979): anxious-avoidant and anxiousambivalent. Building on this work, Main (2001) uses life stories of parents
from their biographies. She found differences from “insworth´s results
(1979), but basically, more commonalities. Main identified three sub-types:
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secure autonomous, insecure-disregarded, and insecure-concerned. Some
study participants whom she catalogued as secure autonomous were able
to narrate stories of their childhood, but others had difficulties in
expressing their emotions. Bowlby (1960) pointed out that the effects of
separation persist throughout the life-spans. Maternal loss produces a
stage of protest which if it remains unresolved activates pain and
resistance. The desire for exploration deteriorates if the child has not
received the love of its care-takers (Bowlby 1960). Similar results were
noted by Anderson (1972) who said that toddlers try sorties of varying
distances from their mother, and then return to the maternal secure base
when they feel insecurity. If the child loses sight of the mother, its
exploration ends by returning to her. The legacy of Bowlby (1960; 1986;
1989), Ainsworth (1979), Main (2001), and Anderson (1972) were of vital
significance for psychology since it showed that the importance of
maternal figure in children and throughout the lifespan (Klauss & Kennell,
1985; Crain, 2015). Bowlby (1960; 1986; 1989) was a pioneer in confirming
that our system of exploration or exploratory behavior varies according to
the type of attachment and the connection between the mother and infant.
The fear that everyone feels when going through the unknown may be
explained by the failures in early socialization, as attachment theory was
formulated by Bowlby (1960). This pattern would accompany adults
during all their life-span.
Following this, interesting correlations between schizophrenia and
psychological pathologies in adulthood can be done using the conceptual
background of attachment theory (Stern, 2000; Casullo, 2005). Some
studies revealed that the original pattern of attachment may change
during the life span (Crain, 2015). For example Spitz (1960) agrees with
”owlby s (1989) general conclusions about attachment, but he insists that
considering the loss of love as the primary factor to explain social behavior
is a mistake. Trauma may evolve in the mind from a variety of sources.
Belsky (1999) highlighted the importance of the context to infer the
validity of some attachment types over others. Sometimes, we valorize
secure-autonomous type over others, but this is a clear error. If society
faces a deep demographic decline, the insecure-concerned type will
surface. Far from being counter-productive, this will lead to raise the
current fertility rates. Korstanje (2008) exerted a critique against
attachment theory respecting to the times information and evidence was
gathered. There are no longitudinal observations of how studied children
evolved to adulthood, or whether events happened as they reminded.
After all, a bad or good mother follows only an archetype of how she is
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remembered by the child, not exactly as how she really was. Attachment
theory alludes to a symbolic archetype of care-takers which sometimes
bespeaks of the internal world of patient. Moreover, using questionnaires
and interviews of adults elicits responses which may have been elaborated
and distorted by the study subjects, and therefore cannot guarantee the
facts as they really happened. “ mother s memory is subject to many
sources of distortion. Quite aside from this, the application of attachment
model has been correlated with romantic relations (Hazan & Shaver, 1990;
1994; Casullo, 2005), problems in education (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, &
Target, 2002; Robbins & Zacks, 2007), sociological issues such as
adaptations to modernity (Giddens, 1991), and, most pertinently to the
present paper, resistance of subject to travel and fear of flying (Korstanje,
2010a; 2010c; 2011a; 2011b; 2013). Due to its complexity, clinical theory as
well as secure-base theory has not been used in tourism-related research,
or in risk perception studies.
Interesting hypothesis of work can be obtained from reading this
theoretical platform. In next, we discuss the main ideas secure base theory
provides for tourism-readers.
CONCLUSION
As early noted, tourism is bereft between the wall and blue sea. Though its
resiliency, a wide range of new risks pose serious challenge for the
industry in next years. We have discussed to what an extent, attachment
theory and secure base models offer fertile grounds to expand empirical
research. Diverse cultures develop a variety of attachment types, which
mould different forms of adaptations to risks. While some cultures are
risk-oriented, others are risk-avoiders. Attachment behaviors explain why
those who have been socialized in atmosphere of conflict and violence
developed an insecure adaptation to Enviroment, as well as their
exploratory system turned damaged. One of the aspects of culture that
equals mother bondage is the sense of lost-paradise. Tourism at some
extent, not only emulate lost paradise, but also the lost mother womb.
Two working hypothesis are of paramount importance to be continued in
next approaches. Following ”owlby´s (1960; 1986; 1989) legacy, infants
who grown up into insecure types are not only more sensitive of risks, but
also affrighted to get out their homes, while secure-base personalities
follow a risk-seeker type of exploration. Secondly, attachment theory can
65
Korstanje et. al.
be applied to national contexts complementing the already-existent risk
perception literature and its outcomes.
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