IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v32y2012i1p138-154.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Crucial Role of Nomothetic and Idiographic Conceptions of Time: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Nuclear Waste Management

Author

Listed:
  • Corinne Moser
  • Michael Stauffacher
  • Pius Krütli
  • Roland W. Scholz

Abstract

The disposal of nuclear waste involves extensive time scales. Technical experts consider up to 1 million years for the disposal of spent fuel and high‐level waste in their safety assessment. Yet nuclear waste is not only a technical but also a so‐called sociotechnical problem and, therefore, requires interdisciplinary collaboration between technical, natural, social sciences, and the humanities in its management. Given that these disciplines differ in their language, epistemics, and interests, such collaboration might be problematic. Based on evidence from cognitive psychology, we suggest that, in particular, a concept like time is presumably critical and can be understood differently. This study explores how different scientific disciplines understand extensive time scales in general and then focuses on nuclear waste. Eighteen qualitative exploratory interviews were conducted with experts for time‐related phenomena of different disciplines, among them experts working in nuclear waste management. Analyses revealed two distinct conceptions of time corresponding to idiographic and nomothetic research approaches: scientists from the humanities and social sciences tend to have a more open, undetermined conception of time, whereas natural scientists tend to focus on a more determined conception that includes some undetermined aspects. Our analyses lead to reflections on potential difficulties for interdisciplinary teams in nuclear waste management. We focus on the understanding of the safety assessment, on potential implications for communication between experts from different disciplines (e.g., between experts from the humanities and engineering for risk assessment and risk communication), and we reflect on the roles of different disciplines in nuclear waste management.

Suggested Citation

  • Corinne Moser & Michael Stauffacher & Pius Krütli & Roland W. Scholz, 2012. "The Crucial Role of Nomothetic and Idiographic Conceptions of Time: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Nuclear Waste Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 138-154, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:32:y:2012:i:1:p:138-154
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01639.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01639.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2011.01639.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sheila Jasanoff, 1993. "Bridging the Two Cultures of Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(2), pages 123-129, April.
    2. Haas, Peter M., 1992. "Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 1-35, January.
    3. Lennart Sjöberg, 2001. "Limits of Knowledge and the Limited Importance of Trust," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(1), pages 189-198, February.
    4. Irene Lorenzoni & Nick F. Pidgeon & Robert E. O'Connor, 2005. "Dangerous Climate Change: The Role for Risk Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1387-1398, December.
    5. Arnout R. H. Fischer & Aarieke E. I. De Jong & Rob De Jonge & Lynn J. Frewer & Maarten J. Nauta, 2005. "Improving Food Safety in the Domestic Environment: The Need for a Transdisciplinary Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(3), pages 503-517, June.
    6. Catherine E. Althaus, 2005. "A Disciplinary Perspective on the Epistemological Status of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(3), pages 567-588, June.
    7. James Flynn & Paul Slovic & C. K. Mertz, 1993. "Decidedly Different: Expert and Public Views of Risks from a Radioactive Waste Repository," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(6), pages 643-648, December.
    8. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    9. Greenhalgh, Joanne & Flynn, Rob & Long, Andrew F. & Tyson, Sarah, 2008. "Tacit and encoded knowledge in the use of standardised outcome measures in multidisciplinary team decision making: A case study of in-patient neurorehabilitation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 183-194, July.
    10. Kimberly M. Thompson & Paul F. Deisler & Richard C. Schwing, 2005. "Interdisciplinary Vision: The First 25 Years of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), 1980–2005," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1333-1386, December.
    11. Pius Krütli & Michael Stauffacher & Thomas Flüeler & Roland W. Scholz, 2010. "Functional-dynamic public participation in technological decision-making: site selection processes of nuclear waste repositories," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(7), pages 861-875, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frédéric Vandermoere, 2008. "Hazard Perception, Risk Perception, and the Need for Decontamination by Residents Exposed to Soil Pollution: The Role of Sustainability and the Limits of Expert Knowledge," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 387-398, April.
    2. Lucia Savadori & Stefania Savio & Eraldo Nicotra & Rino Rumiati & Melissa Finucane & Paul Slovic, 2004. "Expert and Public Perception of Risk from Biotechnology," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(5), pages 1289-1299, October.
    3. Michael Siegrist & Melanie Connor & Carmen Keller, 2012. "Trust, Confidence, Procedural Fairness, Outcome Fairness, Moral Conviction, and the Acceptance of GM Field Experiments," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(8), pages 1394-1403, August.
    4. Teklewold, Hailemariam, 2011. "Farming or burning? shadow prices and farmer’s impatience on the allocation of multi-purpose resource in the mixed farming system of Ethiopia," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 116080, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    6. Claude Paraponaris, 2017. "Plateformes numériques, conception ouverte et emploi," Post-Print halshs-01614430, HAL.
    7. Andrew B. Whitford & Derrick Anderson, 2021. "Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1053-1070, October.
    8. Robert Gazzale & Julian Jamison & Alexander Karlan & Dean Karlan, 2013. "Ambiguous Solicitation: Ambiguous Prescription," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 1002-1011, January.
    9. Hinnosaar, Marit, 2016. "Time inconsistency and alcohol sales restrictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 108-131.
    10. Caroline Flammer & Michael W. Toffel & Kala Viswanathan, 2021. "Shareholder activism and firms' voluntary disclosure of climate change risks," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(10), pages 1850-1879, October.
    11. Eichengreen, Barry & Ghironi, Fabio, 1997. "European Monetary Unification and International Monetary Cooperation," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt10d518tg, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Min Gong & David Krantz & Elke Weber, 2014. "Why Chinese discount future financial and environmental gains but not losses more than Americans," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 103-124, October.
    13. Matteo Iacoviello, 2008. "Household Debt and Income Inequality, 1963–2003," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 929-965, August.
    14. Cosmo, Valeria Di & O’Hora, Denis, 2017. "Nudging electricity consumption using TOU pricing and feedback: evidence from Irish households," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-14.
    15. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:709-728 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Richard M. H. Suen, 2014. "Time Preference And The Distributions Of Wealth And Income," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 364-381, January.
    17. Jeanie Bukowski, 2017. "A “new water culture†on the Iberian Peninsula? Evaluating epistemic community impact on water resources management policy," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 239-264, March.
    18. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    19. Kimmich, Christian & Fischbacher, Urs, 2016. "Behavioral determinants of supply chain integration and coexistence," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 55-77.
    20. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel & Guryan, Jonathan & Hyndman, Kyle & Kearney, Melissa & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2015. "Do lottery payments induce savings behavior? Evidence from the lab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-24.
    21. Mateos-Garcia, Juan & Steinmueller, W. Edward, 2008. "The institutions of open source software: Examining the Debian community," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 333-344, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:32:y:2012:i:1:p:138-154. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.