The influence of linear and cyclical temporal representations on risk perception of nuclear waste: an experimental study

Moser, Corinne; Stauffacher, Michael; Krütli, Pius; Scholz, Roland

doi:10.1080/13669877.2011.636836

Cited by 20 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The extrapolation from the Nauru guano deposit, the size of which can be visualized as a concrete object (Gigerenzer 1998 ; Piaget and Inhelder 1956 ; Scholz 1989 ), to the world’s resources and sub-resources of Earth’s terrestrial crust, whose magnitude is far beyond human perceptional experience (Resnick et al 2017 ), is an example. This is in line with the finding that large time scales (Moser et al 2012 ) or small probabilities (Gigerenzer 2015 ) are rather confusing as most people cannot comprehend such matters without explicit help in their perception.…”

Section: The Role Of Mineral Economics In Transdisciplinary Processes...supporting

confidence: 85%

The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice

Scholz

Steiner

2022

Miner Econ

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Mineral economics is a genuine multidisciplinary field dealing with economic and policy matters related to the production, distribution, and consumption of mineral commodities. We discuss why the increasing complexity, ambiguity, ambivalence, and social contestation of subjects of mineral economics promote the participation of mineral economists in transdisciplinary processes. These processes relate (a) knowledge from targeted interdisciplinary processes and (b) mitigated discourses among different stakeholders to provide (c) a shared problem definition and to attain shared basic knowledge about problem transformation science and practice. We discuss known examples of misperceptions regarding minerals (phosphorus), such as an imminent scarcity threat, the incorrectly understood causations of the 2007/2008 price peak and present the phosphorus ore-grades increased by 3.2% between 1983 and 2013 fallacies (which is based on the Simpson’s paradox), and only few countries have mineable reserves fallacy. Here, we also illuminate motivations underlying several mineral economics–related misunderstandings. We argue that societally relevant questions require an honest mineral economics knowledge brokership. The example of the Global TraPs project, which targeted sustainable phosphorus management, is presented. Honest brokership to attain a clearinghouse function of science requires trust formation in society. We argue that this calls for increasing the understandability of relationships that are not well-understood, such as “if prices rise, so do stocks.” Wellmer and Becker-Platen’s feedback control cycle may be considered an example of how complex mineral economics can become and how challenging it is to be understandable to scientists from different disciplines and faculties as well as to practitioners whose knowledge may well be used to cope with the complexity of given problems. Thus, the present paper represents a plea for mutual learning between science and practice in order to understand the complex social and economic challenges of mineral resource dynamics.

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Section: The Role Of Mineral Economics In Transdisciplinary Processes...supporting

confidence: 85%

The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice

Scholz

Steiner

2022

Miner Econ

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“…It seems that this ambivalent group (cf. also Poortinga and Pidgeon 2006), which corresponds to the political centre's opinion, does not have a polarized opinion regarding nuclear waste and is particularly sensitive to external information when making judgments (Moser et al 2012). The influence on opinions may depend on the way of communication such as print communications that cover positive and negative aspects nudging peoples' deliberative decisions (Fleishman et al 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public preference of electricity options before and after Fukushima

Rudolf

Seidl

Moser

et al. 2014

Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences

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The accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in spring 2011 spurred Germany and Switzerland to phase out nuclear technology. To ensure future electricity supply, this phase-out requires a strong commitment to accept alternative production technologies and energy strategies. This study examined if and how laypeople's preference for electricity produced by nuclear power and the alternatives in Switzerland has been affected by the Japanese disaster. An online study was conducted in February (N ¼ 69) and repeated in June 2011 (N ¼ 57), applying the same questionnaire to both samples. The study included a preference rating task involving nuclear, gas, photovoltaics, wind power, and hydropower, and choice-based conjoint tasks. The conjoint tasks contained attributes such as production technologies and price instruments. Participants had to choose their preferred combination of attributes. The results show that laypeople's preference for nuclear power dropped significantly between February and June 2011, whereas their preferences for other technologies changed only marginally. Furthermore, the envisaged mid-term "stepping stones" of gas and electricity imports on the way to renewable energy have been highly unpopular and have remained so after the Fukushima accident. Transitioning from nuclear energy to renewable energy, therefore, will likely be challenging.

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“…Given its explorative nature, student sample is used for this research. Student sample is commonly used in risk perception studies ( Johnson and Slovic, 1995;Moser et al, 2012). In all, 50 students from Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School were recruited.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of delayed environmental risks: beyond time discounting

Liu

Xie

She

2014

Disaster Prevention and Management

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Purpose -The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of time delay on the perception of environmental risks beyond time discounting, and thus provide a reference for effective communication related to environment and environmental risks. Design/methodology/approach -Ten risk scenarios across four time delay conditions were designed. Computer program randomly presented different risk scenarios to student subjects. Risk perception was measured through equivalent certain loss elicited by bi-section method. In all, 50 students from Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School participated in the experiment. Findings -Time delay makes the subjects optimistic toward environmental risk with the exclusion of time discounting. The more distant in time the occurrence of an environmental risk, the less in intensity subjects will perceive it as a severe threat. Also, there is a noticeable difference in environmental risk perception between males and females. Research limitations/implications -This tentative research focusses on exploring the existence of time delay effect on environmental risk perception. Only student subjects are recruited for this research. Future studies are needed to extend the population to people of different backgrounds in order to generalize the finding. Practical implications -Current ethical appeal of zero social discount rate is unlikely to be effective. Time delay effect in people's environmental risk perception should be acknowledged. Such an acknowledgement is the basis of trust in risk communication. Communication effort needs to address this time delay effect to make people alert to long-term environmental risks, and eventually change their environmental behaviors. Originality/value -The explorative research represents the first attempt to investigate the effect of time delay on environmental risk perception when time discounting is excluded. It suggests a new direction to understand public optimism toward delayed environmental risks, and reluctance to take proactive actions, and thus offers a new insight into related communication efforts.

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The influence of linear and cyclical temporal representations on risk perception of nuclear waste: an experimental study

Cited by 20 publications

References 37 publications

The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice

The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice

Public preference of electricity options before and after Fukushima

Perception of delayed environmental risks: beyond time discounting

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