Abstract
Energy projects can pose serious risks that can elicit negative emotions in people, threatening their well-being and fueling public resistance. As energy projects are oftentimes controlled by governments and industry, people have to rely on responsible parties for preventing and reducing the risks. We introduced the TEAR model and examined to what extent trust in responsible parties, in addition to perceived risks, is related to people’s negative emotions towards risks of energy projects. So far, the effects of risk perceptions and trust on emotions have been studied in isolation, which hinders the understanding of their unique effects on emotions. We tested in a longitudinal field survey to what extent perceived risks and trust in responsible parties relate to different types of negative emotions elicited by gas extraction and induced earthquakes, including consequence-based emotions (e.g. fear), morality-based emotions (e.g. anger) and feelings of powerlessness. The results consistently showed that the higher risks people perceived, the more they experienced all types of negative emotions. Trust in responsible parties was particularly strongly associated with morality-based emotions and feelings of powerlessness. The assumed relationships between the constructs in the TEAR model were generally stable across time, in spite of other ongoing developments, such as recurring earthquakes, increasingly heated public debates about the risks of gas extraction, and some prevention and mitigation measures taken by responsible parties.
Highlights
Energy projects can pose serious risks to society
We computed mean scores for each type of negative emotions in each measurement phase; higher scores represent stronger negative emotions. We examined whether these three types of negative emotions can be distinguished empirically via the multiple group method (MGM) [25], which is a type of confirmatory factor analysis that examines whether the grouping of the items in the three scales is in line with the theoret ically pre-defined constructs
Building on appraisal theories of emotions (e.g., [8,9,10,11,12,13,15]), we devel oped and tested the Trust and emotional appraisal of risks (TEAR) model that proposes that perceived risks and trust in responsible parties influence negative emotions towards the risks of externally controlled energy projects
Summary
Energy projects can pose serious risks to society. For example, nu clear energy can pose health and environmental risks due to radioactive waste and nuclear accidents, and shale gas may cause tremors and water contamination. Perceived risks and trust were typically studied separately, the question remains whether both factors are important unique predictors of negative emotions towards energy pro jects This is relevant as some studies suggest that people’s trust in responsible parties influences how much risks they perceive In the case of established energy projects, people are usually familiar with the risks, because they or others have been exposed to the risks already In such cases, we argue that both perceived risks and trust are likely to be important unique predictors of negative emotions, with perceived risks reflecting primary appraisal and trust reflecting secondary appraisal of energy projects. The question remains to what extent the two types of appraisal, in our case perceived risks and trust in responsible parties, affect different types of negative emotions towards the risks of energy projects. We expect that feeling powerless is most strongly related to trust: people are more likely to feel more powerless when they have less trust in the responsible parties
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
