3. Survey summary
We conducted a web-based survey in February 2013. The survey
was administered to 2000 individuals by stratified random sampling
from the registered respondents of MyVoice Communications, Inc., a
Japanese research agency. They were paid $5 for their participation.
We set the following conditions for data collection: (a) 1000 respondents
for each gender; (b) participants' age from 20 to 69 years; and
(c) approximately 20% of respondents from each age group. The actual
number of respondents from each age group was as follows: 333 respondents
in their 20s, 435 in their 30s, 405 in their 40s, 391 in their
50s, and 436 in their 60s. Their average age was 45.4 years. Further,
159 participants lived in Tohoku region, inwhich Fukushima prefecture
is located. Of the respondents, 62% were married, and 47% indicated a
bachelor's degree as their highest educational qualification. The average
household sizewas 2.9members. Table 1 provides other information on
the respondents.
A preliminary surveywas conducted before the two detailed surveys
for cognitive dissonance (Section 4) and the no-choice option
(Section 5). This survey consisted of four questions on nuclear power
generation and electricity rates. The respondents visited the survey
website and answered the questions. Table 2 presents the questions
and the frequency distribution of the responses to each question. The
responses do not differ between the participants from Tohoku and the
other regions of Japan; χ2s b 3.43, ps N .635.
The first question was whether their opinions about nucleargenerated
electric power had changed since the Fukushima crisis.
Among the respondents, 75.4% indicated that their opinions had
changed. The second question was about future nuclear power generation
plans—whether they thought that more plants should be set up, the
status quo should continue, or the plants should be abandoned. The results
showed that 67% of the respondents thought the plants should be
abandoned (immediately or in the future). The third questionwas about
resuming the nuclear power plants that were being shut-down. The respondents
were asked if they thought the plants should be resumed Results showed that 56% of the respondents thought that the plants
should be resumed once their safety was ensured. The fourth question
was about the increase in electricity rates. The respondents were
asked how tolerant they were to the increase in household electricity
rates that resulted from the shutdown of nuclear power plants and
the increase in fuel costs to heat power plants. The results showed
that 61.3% of the respondents wanted no increase in electricity rates.
Overall, the respondents substantially changed their opinions after
the Fukushima crisis and thought that the nuclear plants should be
abandoned at some time. They, however, favored the resumption of nuclear
plants once their safety was ensured, and objected to any increase
in electricity rates due to reduced dependency on nuclear power generation.
Thus, they experienced a psychological conflict