Abstract
An experimental study was conducted on the effects that information pertaining to possible lack of energy may have on risk perception, risk judgments, and exploration of risk-related information. Three hundred and twenty-three randomly-sampled individuals, aged between 20 and 59 years, living in the Osaka area (Japan) participated in the experiment. During the experiment, participants watched either a video with images portraying a society lacking electricity (experimental group) or a video without such images (control group). Then, they freely explored a database consisting of scientific, technological, economic, social, and institutional information on nuclear power generation. Participants' risk perception of nuclear power generation and degree of trust in the video and database producers, were measured using a questionnaire.
The results suggested that, in terms of risk communication, the trust of the receivers in the information provider tends to increase. That is, when the provider presents convincing risk information, the receiver tend to become increasingly afraid and dependent on the provider, and this tends to enhance his trust in the latter. Moreover, the receiver's trust in the provider was found, in the case of nuclear power generation, to be determined by the expectation of the provider's ability, but not directly, that is, through the expectation of the latter's prosociality.
