Ways of thinking about the incinerator: A typology of citizens’ mindsets

• A typology of psycho-social orientations towards an incinerator plant is proposed.
• The typology relied on the crossing of self-efficacy and trust in institutions.
• Four distinct profiles emerged: Fatalists, Delegants, Collaboratives, Activists.

This paper considers the social representation of an incinerator plant operating for more than 30 years in a medium-sized city in Italy. A survey was carried out with a representative sample of an Italian town, a community that was not generally hostile to it. On the basis of self-efficacy and trust in institutions, and by applying cluster analyses, we obtain evidence for four distinct groups labelled as Fatalists, Collaboratives, Activists, and Delegants. The four groups express systematic variations in social representation. We discuss the theoretical and practical impacts of these results.