Structure and Intensity of Public Attitudes toward Nuclear Power Generation

Abstract

The purpose was to (1) find the structural characteristics of the public attitudes toward nuclear power generation (NPG), and (2) develop a scale to measure the intensity in attitude toward NPG. Subjects (N = 1, 582) were asked to answer a partly different questionnaire including attitude toward NPG and related matters. The results were: (1) Items which correlated with attitude toward NPG were: “Sense of anxiety about NPG,” “Sensitivity to risk,” “Trust in science and technology,” “Evaluation of Japan's nuclear policy,” “Evaluation of electric power companies,” and “Interest in life and environmental issues.” Moreover, people with a strong attitude tended to be rational and had a detailed knowledge of NPG; (2) The measurement method used was characterized by the use of biased questions (ten positively and ten negatively biased questions) which were shown to the subjects using the split-half method. We compared the proportion of “agree” answers to positively biased questions (P) and that of “disagree” answers to negatively biased questions (N). The data analysis was done by the following measures: 1 “Attitude toward NPG (P or N)”, 2 “Absolute Intensity (P-N)”, and 3 “Relative Intensity [(P-N)/{(P + N)/2}]”. As a result, differences in attitude and its intensity among different attributes were remarkably found.