Abstract
This paper explores the public perception of energy transition pathways, that is, individual behaviors, political strategies, and technologies that aim to foster a shift toward a low-carbon and sustainable society. We employed affective image analysis, a structured method based on free associations to explore positive and negative connotations and affective meanings. Affective image analysis allows to tap into affective meanings and to compare these meanings across individuals, groups, and cultures. Data were collected among university students in Norway (n = 106) and Germany (n = 125). A total of 25 energy transition pathway components were presented to the participants who generated one free association to each component by indicating the first that came to mind when thinking of the component. Participants evaluated their associations by indicating whether they considered each association to be positive, negative, or neutral. These associations were coded by two research assistants, which resulted in 2650 coded responses in the Norwegian sample and 2846 coded responses in the German sample. Results for the two samples are remarkably similar. The most frequent type of association is a general evaluation of the component, for example concerning its valence or its importance. The second most frequent types of association are requirements needed to implement the component (e.g., national policies) and consequences of the component (e.g., personal or environmental consequences). Individual behaviors (e.g., walking) elicited thoughts about consequences and requirements, but also about the prevalence of such behaviors. Associations in response to technologies (e.g., carbon capture and storage) mainly referred to some descriptive aspect of the technology. Evaluations of the free responses were predominantly positive, but some components also elicited negative associations, especially nuclear power. The free associations that people generate suggest that they have vague and unspecific knowledge about energy transition pathways, that they process them in an automatic and intuitive rather than deliberative manner, and that they have clear affective evaluations of the presented components.
Highlights
Energy transition commonly refers to “a change in the state of an energy system as opposed to a change in an individual energy technology or fuel source” (Grubler et al, 2016, p. 18)
We argue that if the aim is to study subjective mental representations of energy transition, a broad range of potential actions and changes need to be taken into account
Our approach is complementary in the sense that we aim to explore laypeople’s mental representation of the broad landscape of potential energy transition pathways
Summary
Energy transition commonly refers to “a change in the state of an energy system as opposed to a change in an individual energy technology or fuel source” (Grubler et al, 2016, p. 18). This paper investigates the public perception of energy transition pathways, with a focus on subjective mental representations in the form of connotative meanings and affective images. We developed a coding scheme in a bottom-up manner in the following steps: first, four individuals (two of the authors, plus two research assistants from the same target population as the respondents, i.e., university students) looked at the responses independently and came up with a proposal for categories. These four proposals were merged by discussion and developed into a common coherent category system. The five superordinate categories are: (a) requirements (i.e., the response indicates that the component will not work in isolation but requires some additional action; subcategories refer to requirements at the level of international politics, national politics, or individual life styles), (b) consequences (i.e., the response refers to potential positive or negative consequences of the component; subcategories refer to consequences for individuals, society, or the environment), (c) evaluation (i.e., the respondent expresses an evaluation of the component, for example concerning its feasibility or importance), (d) prevalence (i.e., the response refers to the prevalence of the component, indicating how widespread, or rare, it is; for example indicating that the component applies only to certain people), and (e) remnant categories (e.g., mere descriptions of the component, when the response stated some descriptive aspect of the component such as that electric cars are electric)
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