Multidimensional affective orientations and nuclear energy acceptance: integrating self- and threat-oriented negative affect and affective disengagement into the risk perception paradigm

Public acceptance of nuclear energy has traditionally been explained through the risk perception paradigm, which emphasizes cognitive evaluations of risks, benefits, trust, and knowledge. Yet emotional responses remain conceptually under-specified and frequently operationalized as undifferentiated negative affect. This study advances a multidimensional framework of affective orientation by distinguishing among self-oriented negative affect, threat-oriented negative affect, and affective disengagement. Self-oriented negative affect, measured through guilt and depression, is interpreted cautiously as inwardly directed affect that may involve moral burden, responsibility attribution, or perceived helplessness rather than direct emotion toward nuclear technology alone. Drawing on survey data from 1,970 Korean adults collected in June-July 2025, we examine how these affective orientations shape both personal acceptance (willingness to bear local exposure) and social acceptance (support for national nuclear policy). Hierarchical regression and interaction analyses show that emotional differentiation improves explanatory precision beyond conventional cognitive predictors. Threat-oriented negative affect consistently reduces both personal and social acceptance, self-oriented negative affect is positively associated with personal – but not social – acceptance, and affective disengagement facilitates passive social acceptance while exhibiting limited influence on personal acceptance. These findings demonstrate that emotions do not operate as a uniform barrier to nuclear energy. Instead, affective orientations shape technological acceptance through distinct functional pathways and by structuring the cognitive processing of risk information. Incorporating emotional heterogeneity into the risk perception paradigm offers a more precise theoretical account of energy technology acceptance and suggests that policy communication strategies should be calibrated to specific emotional profiles rather than relying solely on technical risk information.