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People’s attitudes towards noise sources are often mentioned as one of the non-acoustic variables influencing responses to different kinds of noise. In several papers, a relation between noise annoyance and attitudes towards the noise source have been reported 1-3 (the more negative the attitudes, the higher the annoyance).

According to Guski 3, the evaluation of the source of the noise within a social community leads to common beliefs that certain noise sources are more valuable or harmful than others. Kroesen et al. 4, 5 state that people’s opinions and attitudes on noise related subjects are largely shaped by policy about these matters, and lead to more or less coherent social ‘frames of mind’4, 5. These social frames do not cause annoyance directly, but they do provide boundaries about how to feel in what circumstances. According to their theory, personal variables can be explained in a cause-effect model, which partly determines what ‘frame of mind’a person will adopt about noise related issues 5.