A place-based perspective on local wind energy acceptance: the role of place attachment, motivations, and social norms

Wind energy is widely supported, yet specific projects encounter local contestation. Moving beyond NIMBY-based interpretations, this research examined social acceptance of wind energy as a place-based and socially situated judgment. Across two Italian experimental studies, we tested whether making place attachment salient reduces acceptance of a proposed wind farm and whether environmental, economic, and social motivations relate to acceptance under different place and normative conditions. In Study 1 ( N = 491), participants evaluated a wind farm near either a personally meaningful natural place or a non-meaningful place. Place attachment salience reduced local acceptability and support, whereas general support for wind energy did not differ between conditions. Economic motivation was positively associated with acceptance in the low-salience condition, whereas the association between social motivation and acceptance did not differ significantly between conditions. In Study 2 ( N = 509), all participants evaluated a project in a high place-attachment context and received local descriptive norm information indicating low or high local support. The manipulation changed perceived local support but did not increase acceptance. More importantly, social motivation interacted with the local descriptive norm: it predicted acceptance when local support was low, but not when support was high, suggesting that community-oriented reasons may sustain acceptance when local consensus is absent. Together, the findings show that local acceptability of wind energy is not a simple application of general support for renewables to a specific site. Acceptance depends on how renewable energy projects are interpreted in relation to place meaning, motivational reasons, and local social legitimacy.