Application of a Temporal Persistence Model to Community Residents' L]ong‐Term Beliefs about the Three Mile island Nuclear Accident¹

Little is known about the conditions under which beliefs and attitudes about an issue or event will persist over time. The present research took advantage of a “natural experiment”, namely, the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear accident, in order (a) better to understand the nature of individuals' b]eliefs about a major event to which they were exposed and (b) to evaluate a conceptual formulation developed from laboratory‐based experimental literature concerning when beliefs and attitudes are likely to be temporally persistent. Data were collected over a 3‐year period following the accident from two samples of community residents: mothers of young children who lived within a 10‐mile radius of TMI and TMI nuclear power plant employees. Samples of mothers and workers from a western Pennsylvania comparison site were also included in the study design. Results supported the persistence model in several respects. First, TMI subjects' b]eliefs, although more extreme than comparison subjects' v]iews, showed virtually no change during the study period. Second, the factors that the model suggests should account for the observed persistence were indeed consistently important predictors of TMI subjects' b]eliefs over time. Implications of the results for future applied work on long‐term reactions to major events are discussed.