Abstract
People may refuse trade-offs between some things that they value and other things. However, the possibility that some values are protected against being trade-offs with other values can make an appropriate judgment regarding public policies impossible. This study was aimed to examine the effects of different methods for explaining public policy upon mitigation of protected values. Two methods examined in this study were; one-sided presentation in which policy manager explains only merits of the policy and two-sided presentation in which policy manager explains both of its merits and demerits. Focusing on the issue of re-operation of nuclear power plants, we conducted a scenario experiment (n = 120) and compared the effects of the two methods. The result showed that two-sided presentation tended more to mitigate protected values than one-sided presentation did. Furthermore, it was shown that the effect was accounted to respondents’ increased recognition that policy manager understands his or her own values and their trust in the manager. Finally, implications of the present results for consensus building around public policies were discussed.
