Journal ArticleDOI
How a nuclear power plant accident influences acceptance of nuclear power: results of a longitudinal study before and after the Fukushima disaster.
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Even after a severe accident, the public may still consider the benefits as relevant, and trust remains important for determining their risk and benefit perceptions, and a discussion of the benefits seems most likely to affect the public's acceptance of nuclear power, even after a nuclear accident.Abstract:
Major nuclear accidents, such as the recent accident in Fukushima, Japan, have been shown to decrease the public's acceptance of nuclear power. However, little is known about how a serious accident affects people's acceptance of nuclear power and the determinants of acceptance. We conducted a longitudinal study (N= 790) in Switzerland: one survey was done five months before and one directly after the accident in Fukushima. We assessed acceptance, perceived risks, perceived benefits, and trust related to nuclear power stations. In our model, we assumed that both benefit and risk perceptions determine acceptance of nuclear power. We further hypothesized that trust influences benefit and risk perceptions and that trust before a disaster relates to trust after a disaster. Results showed that the acceptance and perceptions of nuclear power as well as its trust were more negative after the accident. In our model, perceived benefits and risks determined the acceptance of nuclear power stations both before and after Fukushima. Trust had strong effects on perceived benefits and risks, at both times. People's trust before Fukushima strongly influenced their trust after the accident. In addition, perceived benefits before Fukushima correlated with perceived benefits after the accident. Thus, the nuclear accident did not seem to have changed the relations between the determinants of acceptance. Even after a severe accident, the public may still consider the benefits as relevant, and trust remains important for determining their risk and benefit perceptions. A discussion of the benefits of nuclear power seems most likely to affect the public's acceptance of nuclear power, even after a nuclear accident.read more
Citations
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Promoting novelty, rigor, and style in energy social science: towards codes of practice for appropriate methods and research design
TL;DR: It is the hope that this Review will inspire more interesting, robust, multi-method, comparative, interdisciplinary and impactful research that will accelerate the contribution that energy social science can make to both theory and practice.
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“Fracking” Controversy and Communication: Using National Survey Data to Understand Public Perceptions of Hydraulic Fracturing
Hilary Boudet,Christopher E. Clarke,Dylan Bugden,Edward Maibach,Connie Roser-Renouf,Anthony Leiserowitz +5 more
TL;DR: This paper examined public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing and found that women, those holding egalitarian worldviews, those who read newspapers more than once a week, those more familiar with hydraulic fracturing, and those who associate the process with environmental impacts are more likely to oppose fracking.
Journal ArticleDOI
Effect of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the risk perception of residents near a nuclear power plant in China
TL;DR: The FNA had a significant impact on risk perception of the Chinese public, especially on the factor of perceived risk, which increased from limited risk to great risk, and public acceptance of nuclear power decreased significantly after the FNA.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trust and Risk Perception: A Critical Review of the Literature
TL;DR: It is concluded that the importance of trust varies by hazard and respondent group and there is a need for a better understanding about the factors that determine which heuristics people rely on when evaluating hazards.
Journal ArticleDOI
Public perceptions and acceptance of nuclear energy in China: The role of public knowledge, perceived benefit, perceived risk and public engagement
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors examined public perceptions and acceptance of nuclear energy, and explored the effects of public knowledge about nuclear energy and perceived benefit, perceived risk and public engagement on public acceptance.
References
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Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives
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TL;DR: In this article, the adequacy of the conventional cutoff criteria and several new alternatives for various fit indexes used to evaluate model fit in practice were examined, and the results suggest that, for the ML method, a cutoff value close to.95 for TLI, BL89, CFI, RNI, and G...
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Structural Equation Modeling With Mplus: Basic Concepts, Applications, And Programming
TL;DR: Structural Equation Models: The Basics using the EQS Program and testing for Construct Validity: The Multitrait-Multimethod Model and Change Over Time: The Latent Growth Curve Model.
Journal ArticleDOI
Perception of hazards: the role of social trust and knowledge
TL;DR: Negative correlations between perceived risks and perceived benefits are found and suggest that the lay public relies on social trust when making judgments of risks and benefits when personal knowledge about a hazard is lacking.
Journal ArticleDOI
The influence of trust and perceptions of risks and benefits on the acceptance of gene technology.
TL;DR: It was hypothesized that trust in institutions using gene technology or using modified products has a positive impact on perceived benefit and a negative influence on perceived risk of this technology and the proposed model fits the data very well.
Journal ArticleDOI
Salient value similarity, social trust, and risk/benefit perception
TL;DR: Results indicate that social trust is a key predictive factor of the perceived risks and benefits of a technology, and provide support for the salient values similarity theory of social trust.