ALAN and natural darkness survey instrument

Survey instrument used by Cieraad &amp; Dalley to survey 1000 New Zealanders on their attitudes towards artificial light at night (ALAN) and natural darkness at night in 2024. Results of the study are under review.<br><br>The quantitative online anonymous survey consisted of a series of questions related to importance of different benefits derived from ALAN and darkness at night, preference of the mode of ALAN delivery and behaviour after darkness, in addition to some background and open questions. The survey was inspired by studies on attitudes to ALAN, including surveys conducted in Switzerland (Guenat et al. unpublished), Finland (Lyytimaki &amp; Rinne 2013), Scotland (Coogan et al. 2020) and amongst lighting professionals and light pollution experts (Schulte-Römer et al. 2019). These previous studies were framed around impacts of (and attitudes to) ‘light pollution’; as such the presence of ALAN is framed in terms of a ‘negative’ influence/presence. The term ‘pollution’ is universally applied to human impacts on a natural state, with the inherent value-statement that the natural state is ‘good’ and necessarily favourable, whereas the human-modified state is ‘bad’ and unfavourable. To avoid introducing bias through pre-sensitising respondents with a negative framing of ALAN, our survey instrument instead adopts a positive framing by characterising <i>both</i> ALAN and natural darkness as beneficial.<br>Please contact the authors for more information.