The risk of social-psychological disruption as an impact of energy development and environmental change

Abstract

Environmental psychologists and sociologists examining community acceptance of energy development have recently argued that disruption to social-psychological values such as attachment and community- and place-based identity may drive oppositional behaviour to large land use changes. This review supports and expands this argument by showing that social and psychological disruption has been documented throughout sometimes disparate academic literatures as among the most troublesome aspects of large development projects. This collection of literature demonstrates the threat of disruption to place-based identities may spur oppositional behaviour in many cases. In addition, some of these studies have shown that social actors may attempt to influence residents’ perception of these social-psychological risks by framing the effects of development as either congruent or incongruent with certain place and community-based identities. We further discuss the field of risk analysis and its relationship to opposition to land use planning, and argue that that the tools of risk analysis can be used to measure and predict these types of disruptions to social-psychological values.