Attitudes towards Nuclear Power: A Comparison between Three Nations

The attitudes toward the use of nuclear energy of three student samples of roughly equal size (N=150) from FR Germany, Japan and the Philippines were elicited and compared by means of a questionnaire. Concerning their overall attitudinal positions the Japanese students were predominantly in favour of nuclear energy, the German students were less unanimous while the Philippine students showed the most anti-nuclear resentment. These positions were equally influenced by considerations about benefits and risks; whereas the awareness of risks associated to the use of nuclear energy seems to prevail in all three samples, favourable or unfavourable attitudes are predominantly based on the acceptance or denial of perceived benefits. However, agreement about particular risks or benefits was found to be much stronger within each national level than among proponents and opponents of nuclear energy of the combined sample. In addition, the relevance of the issues presented in the questionnaire for the debate about nuclear energy was demonstrated

The Influence of Organization and Management on the Safety of NPPS and Other Complex Industrial Systems (Report of an IAEA/IIASA consultants meeting in Laxenburg and Vienna, 18-22 March 1991)

An analysis of causes for human errors reveals that deficiencies in organization and management often provide an environment making errors more likely. There is also a considerable difference between the operational performance of similar industrial plants. A closer analysis often reveals that the differences can be attributed to the managing practices. Accepting organization and management as one important precursor for operational safety, the aim is to identify good managerial structures and practices as well as characteristics of unsafe operational practices. Such information can provide guidance for the operators of the installations and also support regulatory agencies. The ultimate aim should be to detect and correct organizational deficiencies before an incident or accident brings them into the open. It is therefore not sufficient to blame individuals nor training, because management and organization establishes priorities, structures, and practices that enable tasks to be accomplished. A consultants' meeting organized jointly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) was held in Laxenburg and Vienna, Austria on 18-22 March 1991. The objective of the meeting was to assess the extent to which research within the management sciences -can provide guidance for the practical problems of managing organizations, where safety is the major concern. The influence of organization and management on the safety of complex industrial installations was discussed during the meeting and the exchange of ideas and experience between different industrial sectors and the academia proved fruitful. In spite of the difference among national and company practices it is still expected that there are many possibilities for an exchange of good managerial knowledge, experience, and practices. The report collects both the contributions offered by members of the Expert Task Force and the findings of the discussions that took place during the meeting. Specific reference is in the following text made to the nuclear industry with the understanding that the issues have a wider application to chemical plants, off-shore installations or more generally to industries where safety is a major concern

Measuring Attitudes Towards the Use of Nuclear Power: An Analysis of a Measurement Instrument

A questionnaire was designed to obtain three independent measures of public attitudes towards energy systems, one of which is based on the concept developed by Fishbein. A sample of 147 university students was examined to investigate the meaningfulness of a set of 30 items designed to capture attitudes towards the use of nuclear energy. High correlations were found to exist among all the attitude measures taken, which indicated the appropriate selection and formulation of the attributes used. Analysis of the belief factor scores of the questionnaire yielded four factors: Societal Risks, Economic Benefits, Safety Considerations and Technological Implications. Comparison of sub-groups, pro and con the use of nuclear energy, showed significant differences in their perceptions of the four categories of issues. In addition, the Fishbein model was demonstrated to be insensitive to modifications of scaling as well as to the inclusion of an additional weighting parameter. A standard procedure for the data analysis is suggested

Nuclear Energy: The Accuracy of Policy Makers Perceptions of Public Beliefs

The primary purpose of this study was to empirically test how accurate a group of policy makers were in their assessment of the beliefs and attitudes of the public with regard to the use of nuclear energy. The respondents (n=40) were senior Austrian civil servants responsible for energy matters. The questionnaire used was the same as that employed earlier to measure the attitudes and underlying beliefs of the Austrian public (n=224) and the sub-groups (n=50) of this sample most PRO and CON the use of nuclear energy. The policy makers completed this questionnaire twice: once with respect to their own positions and, on the second occasion, in the role of a typical member of the Austrian public who was either PRO or CON the use of nuclear energy. This experimental design also permitted comparisons between the policy makers' own positions and those of the general public. Public attitudes toward the use of nuclear energy were found, using factor analysis, to be based upon four underlying dimensions of belief: psychological (anxiety-inducing) risks; economic/technical benefits; socio-political implications; and environmental/physical risks. The policy makers' own attitudes were found to be significantly more favourable than those of the total public sample; this was primarily because the policy makers' beliefs about psychological risks made a significantly smaller negative contribution to attitude, and their beliefs about environmental risks made a significantly larger positive contribution. The policy makers were able to shift their own (personal) responses in the directions indicated by their role-play assignments to accurately reproduce the overall attitudes of the PRO and CON groups on this controversial topic, although there was a tendency to overestimate the positive attitudes of the PRO nuclear public. In terms of the underlying belief dimensions however, there was a significant failure to recognise the extent to which issues of psychological significance contribute negatively to the attitudes of both PRO and CON public groups. The policy makers underestimated the negative value both groups assigned to these risks as well as the extent to which the public believed that nuclear energy would lead to such risks

The Determinants of Risk Perception: The Active-Passive Dimension

In this paper the suitability of using photographs as a testing technique for identifying additional factors as determinants of risk perception is discussed. A survey was performed, showing 30 slides to 222 respondents (90 males, 132 females). The risk situations presented were to be evaluated on a rating scale. Factor analytical treatment of data revealed two factors, where the first factor can be interpreted as a "general risk" factor. The second factor displayed a two-dimensional structure, the poles of which were designated "active" and "passive" with regard to the persons depicted in the various, situations. The "active" dimension is described by a permanent struggle with the event, whereas the "passive" dimension is characterized by a submissive ability of endurance with little influence through personal skill on the situation. Technological risk situations (i.e., interaction between man and his technical environment) are mainly located on the passive side of this bi-polar continuum. Here also statistically significant differences between male and female respondents were found

Attitude studies by the IAEA/ IIASA Risk Assessment Group revised version of a lecture presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on 'Technology assessment, environmental impact assessment, and risk analysis,', Les Arcs, France, August 21-31, 1983

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Psychological and sociological approaches to study risk perception

Technological progress and its impacts on humankind has caused an increasing awareness of risk, and objective, statistical estimations are often inadequate to alleviate the public's fright and fear. Research on risk perception using psychological and sociological approaches is trying to bridge this gap. As a first step, a distinction must be made between the technical definition of risk (probability X consequences) and the social definition, in which additional parameters (source, dimensions, timeframe, exposure) need to be included. The methodology of risk assessment, though objective by design, is limited in the interpretability of its results, if the calculation of consequences does not take public perceptions and social effects into account. The problems and advantages of risk assessment are discussed, and the key question for risk perception research are presented. Various techniques are available to study risk perception and attitudes towards risk; selection of a specific technique is determined by the objective of the research, namely sociological implications or psychological cognitions. Several empirical studies in both areas are presented and the results discussed