Misinformation and the Discrepancy between Subjective and Objective Knowledge on Energy Technologies in Switzerland: What Makes Us Seek Information to Improve Our Understanding?

A wealth of research shows that we, the public, are largely misinformed or under-informed regarding important policy issues on which we are expected to vote. Especially when the policy topic is technical or politicized, we tend to turn to heuristics—or mental short-cuts—to form an opinion. And, once our opinion is formed, we defend it at all costs. Unfortunately, the research on these heuristics shows that they often lead us to draw incorrect conclusions and to make poor decisions. In order to enact fact-based, effective public policy, we know we need a dynamic, open, and fact-based public discourse. This requires that we evaluate and debate using facts and update our opinions. One barrier to such evaluation and update is our unwillingness to adopt new information, especially when it contradicts our opinion. Furthermore, when we think we know more than we do, we not only act on the information we have, but we tend to disseminate our misinformed opinion. This paper presents evidence from a survey that Swiss residents are misinformed about deep geothermal energy—both regarding technology fundamentals and Swiss energy policy proposals to implement it. Furthermore, the survey show evidence that how much respondents think they know about this technology (subjective knowledge) correlates little with how much they actually know (objective knowledge). These results contribute to a larger research project on how to enliven public discourse, correct misinformation, and encourage information seeking and knowledge updating through innovative policy communication and public engagement. IThe authors thank Gabriele Camera, Rahel Grossenbacher, Peter Burgherr and Matteo Spada (PSI). We also thank all the researchers involved in the Work Stream 2 of the SCCER CREST-SoE Joint Activity for their support: Yann Blumer, Lukas Braunreiter, Olivier Ejderyan, Corinne Moser, Fintan Oeri, Michael Stauffacher, Selma L’Orange Seigo, Fabienne Sierro and Franziska Ruef. This research is financially supported by Innosuisse. The survey was financed by the University of Basel. ∗Corresponding author: Aya Kachi Email addresses: aya.kachi@unibas.ch (Aya Kachi), rebecca.lordan-perret@unibas.ch (Rebecca Lordan-Perret) Preprint submitted to WWZ Working Paper Archive December 3, 2018