Values influence public acceptability of geoengineering technologies via self-identities

Values are important antecedents of how people view themselves, known as self-identities. Self-identities differ in their content and the importance that people attach to them. In turn, important self-identities promote attitudes that are compatible with a sense of who one is. This paper builds on existing work that highlights that self-identities explained the relationship between values and environmental judgments. This study incorporates a broader range of values (i.e., conservatism, openness to change, self-transcendence, self-enhancement) and self-identities (i.e., environmental, economic, political) and tests how they are related to acceptability of four geoengineering technologies. Whilst support was found for the overall model, the results also show that technology acceptability is context dependent. That is, which specific values and self-identities explain acceptability judgements depends on the specific technology that is evaluated. In general, an environmental self-identity related more to geothermal energy, an economic self-identity was most relevant to geotechnical engineering, and a political self-identity to nuclear power. Each self-identity seemed relevant to mining. This research contributes to the literature by applying this framework to acceptability of geoengineering technologies and discusses practical implications.