In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey to university students in order to reveal whether the perceptions of the environmental policies and the science and technology related to risks and uncertainties in environmental problems influence the choices of publics’ information sharing methods and public participation methods by the medium of the state anxiety and the self-efficacy.
Deman(1984) revealed that those who have high state anxiety tend to feel more anxiety than those who have high trait anxiety about nuclear power plant accident.
In Japan, as the voting rights have been lowered to the age of eighteen since 2016, university students under the age of twenty who had no voting rights so far are able to participate in policy making by voting.
Therefore, in this study we included election which is the public participation method of Japanese parliamentary democracy as an option in questionnaire and asked the major of university students as an indicator of the interests of the public.
As a result, the public in an anxious state highly trusted science and technology, were active in information sharing, and chose as a public participation method the observation of the policy making process concerning prevention and protection against risks and uncertainty to environmental problems.
On the other hand, the public with high self-efficacy were active in sharing information on environmental issues, but they were reluctant to participate because they had positively high self-efficacy.
And, the students majoring in environmental studies had higher self-efficacy rather than those with other majors.
In addition, the view on the science and technology by university students was not separated between scientific problems and social problems.
Therefore, the education before university admission on environmental problems and social influence by science and technology is desirable in the future.
In environmental policies, understanding and behavior of the public on environmental problems are essential.
And, environmental problems are recognized in society only after accidents or disasters happen.
Thus, in order to reflect the difference of individual interests, anxiety and self-efficacy, it is effective to provide opportunities for the public to think independently by getting information concerning prevention and protection against risks and uncertainties regularly together with the methods for information sharing and public participation.