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Environmental data in survey research – discrepancies between objective and subjective perspectives

Coordinator 1Dr Franziska Quoß (GESIS)
Coordinator 2Dr Dennis Abel (GESIS)

Session Details

Environmental social sciences increasingly benefit from the integration of survey data with environmental context variables such as land cover and use, air pollution, or weather data. While this combination of subjective and objective data holds many promises for empirical research and allows for innovative research designs, it is also necessary to scrutinize this data linkage in itself. Do subjective and objective measures of concepts such as perceptions and attitudes lead to the same conclusions and which data source would be preferred? What are the determinants of deviations of subjective perceptions from objective measurements? How can we advance data integration of subjective and objective measures?

The focus of this session is explicitly wide. It aims to gather an overview of current research practices, methodological developments, as well as conceptual notes on challenges and ideas for the optimal combination of survey data with environmental context variables. The session is open for empirical, methodological, and conceptual contributions. Papers matching one of the following aspects are invited to be part of this session (but are not restricted to):
- Innovative research design in environmental social sciences which integrate subjective and objective measures
- Utility of subjective perceptions versus objective measures
- Usage of innovative data sources to advance objective measures such as satellite imagery, GPS data, or street-level imagery
- Quality of indicators and data integration process