Atmosphere at Briefing Sessions and Its Influence on Local Residents’ Intention to Participate in Discussion

Although it is widely recognized that atmosphere influences people’s decision-making process, few studied have examined the effect of atmosphere in the context of consensus building concerning the construction of controversial infrastructures. At local residents’ briefing sessions, the negative words used by certain members of the strong opposition can often create a negative atmosphere, leading to unpleasant arguments. Therefore, in this study, a vignette experiment was conducted to examine the influence of the atmosphere at briefing sessions on local residents’ intention to participate in discussion. The results showed that local residents reported greater intention to participate in discussion in a positive atmosphere compared to a negative atmosphere. As for the cognitive process, however, while in the positive atmosphere only a single factor (i.e., interest) affected local residents’ intention, in the negative atmosphere multifactors (e.g., procedural justice, disbenefit, and mental burden) affected the intention. These findings suggest the importance of choosing an appropriate strategy to increase resident’s intention to participate in discussion depending on the atmosphere (positive or negative). The psychological mechanism of the influence of atmosphere and effective strategies that project implementers should take when the atmosphere becomes negative at a briefing session are discussed.