President Kathy Sherman-Morris
Following last month’s message, I thought I would take the opportunity in this month’s newsletter to discuss what research tells us about how people respond to extreme weather. There are a few key ideas that help explain response across many hazards. One idea is that risk perception is very often a strong predictor of a person’s intention to take protective action during or before extreme weather. Social scientists have been working on models that predict behavioral intention for many years. It is common for them to have a component that takes risk perception into account. Risk perception is a multidimensional measure of how much people feel at risk. It includes concepts such as how likely they think an event is or how likely it is to affect them personally. Personalization of the risk is important, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that later. Risk perception also considers how people feel about a storm. Is it scary? Are they worried about themselves or their loved ones?
Many things can influence risk perception and its effect on behavior, including aspects about the individual, and characteristics of the event or the way the information about the event is presented. Some people are more likely to take or avoid risks when making decisions. A person’s cultural worldview can also influence how they interpret risks. Characteristics of the event such as its severity (e.g., is it a category 2 or a category 4 hurricane? A severe thunderstorm or a tornado?), how close it is (or how close someone perceives it to be) or whether it’s a new and unusual risk or something people are used to can influence how threatening people perceive an event to be. The way the warning is presented can also play a role. For example, tornado warnings with stronger impact statements led to greater sheltering intentions in one study and changing the design of the tornado warning polygon led to differences in perceived fear in another study. Much of what we know about presentation characteristics is based on experimental scenarios.
Another common idea in explaining response is people’s perception about the action they are being asked to take. Can they accomplish the action? Do they think the action will work if they are able to do it? Is the action difficult, expensive, or not something people normally do? Evacuating in a hurricane can be expensive. It can also mean putting your livelihood at risk if you work for wages. Getting up in the middle of the night to leave your home to take shelter during a tornado is at the very least inconvenient. People don’t necessarily engage in a cost-benefit analysis to decide what they are going to do but the action they are being encouraged to do has some influence on whether or not they chose to do it.
I also mentioned that these models help to explain the intention to take action. Intention is usually associated with the actual behavior, but things can act as constraints in preventing them. For example, while I was interviewing individuals who were blind about what they would do in a tornado warning, one participant who lived in a mobile home explained that she would like to go someplace safer, but she did not have access to transportation to get there. Income, language barriers, caring for other people or pets, and disabilities can act as constraints on one’s ability to make the decision they might prefer to.
And finally, people won’t take any action in an event unless they know about it. How people hear about an event can vary. It’s becoming more likely for people to receive a warning on their smartphones, but people still turn to local broadcast meteorologists to provide extra information. When people do hear a warning, it is common for people to seek additional information to confirm the warning. This can help them determine if they believe the warning and if it will affect them personally. Confirmation can come from mass media, other people, visually (e.g., by looking outside), and so on.
This is a very broad look at some of what we know about how people respond to weather events through social science research. There are also many things I left out. I did not provide citations for any of the statements I made, but most of them can be found in peer reviewed journal articles. I am happy to help you track down a source or talk more about any of the ideas I mentioned.
