Acceptance of Electromagnetic Fields Produced by Mobile Phone Antennas: The Influence of Trust and Confidence. M. Siegrist, T. C. Earle, and H. Gutscher, University of Zurich, Switzerland, Western Washington University
The perceived risks associated with electromagnetic fields (EMF) have received very little attention from risk researchers. We examined factors that influence acceptance of a mobile phone antenna in one’s neighborhood. Most people do not possess detailed knowledge about EMF. One way people cope with this lack of knowledge is to rely on trust and confidence to simplify the problems they face. Although there is broad consensus on the importance of trust for risk management, there is no theory of trust and how it operates that social scientists agree upon. We propose a dual-mode model of cooperation based social trust and confidence. Trust and confidence are separate, but, under some circumstances, interacting sources of cooperation. Trust is based on value similarity, and confidence is based on performance. According to our model, judged similarity between the observer’s currently salient values and the values attributed to others determine social trust. Thus, the basis for trust is the belief that the person to be trusted would act as the trusting person would. The interpretation of the other’s performance influences confidence. Confidence can be based on formal record keeping, contracts, control systems or other indicators of past performance. We hypothesize that trust information tends to dominate performance information. By "dominate" we mean that, to an observer, morality-relevant information (i.e., value similarity) is more important, and that it conditions the interpretation of performance-relevant information. Our model was tested in the applied context of EMF risks. Data from a random sample of 1313 Swiss citizens were collected. The telephone survey yielded a response rate of 42%. Structural equation modeling procedures were used to test the plausibility of the postulated dual-model of cooperation based social trust and confidence. Results indicate that the proposed model fits the data very well. The practical implications of the results will be discussed.
The Study was supported by the Research Cooperation Sustainable Mobile Communication, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
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