week 3 Flashcards
what to understand in order to change risk perception of people
people their biases, they base their perception on these biases (short term gains vs long term, bad things won’t happen to me, availability bias)
factors influencing risk perception
- familiarity with the risk
- control over the situation
- degree of drama and rarity of events
- perceived usefulness of the risk factor (workers at tata steel vs people living in the area)
why fear appeal works
good news is less remembered than bad news and has less impact: negative bias. but it is difficult to control, also, if you keep being warned about the same thing over and over again, but the event doesn’t take place, then you stop believing the warnings. fear appeal reduces trust and is difficult to control.
to make sure that people are not put off by fear appeal, it is important to have an action perspective
risk communication filter
- if people do not think they need any of your info, they will not listen to you
- if they have a vague sense that some risk is going on, they might listen to your information campaign
- fear may help a bit but framing also has an effect
civil response in floodings
- people tend to help their social network
- panic doesn’t happen in disaster events
- people do stick to routines
routines are what makes people go on. usually people are not open for the info that counters their security of routines, when you tell someone that never experienced a flood that their house will flood, they tend to close their eyes. unless you tell them what actions to take. feeling safe is more important to people their mental wellbeing than being safe
key points for recovery
- regain a sense of ontological security
- people need a sense of home
- routines and recognizability are important (people stick to their past in order to move on to the future)
risk perception is based on…
trust, experience and emotions
protection motivation theory
used to predict behaviour in response to natural disasters
phases: threat appraisal (ownership appraisal) and coping appraisal
coping appraisal/undertaking action
people not only have to feel at risk, they also have to feel as if they can do something about the risk
two main reasons that influence undertaking action against floods
- ownership of action (individual/organization that is identified as in charge to address a particular issue, households at risk believe that government should be responsible for protecting their property of flooding, or that they will be compensated so they do not have to take action
- system of thought - thought mechanism that drives individual decisions. decisions are characterized by biases, these biases arise because of two systems of thought
ontological security
freedom from existential doubt and the ability to believe that life will go on the same way as it always has, without threats to familiar assumptions (about time, space, identity and well-being)
how do disasters disrupt ontological security
- they destroy possessions that support our sense of who we are
- fracture social structures that provide our everyday needs (friendship)
- disrupt routines that make our life predictable
- challenge the myth of our immortality
risk thermostat
how humans balance risk. when you take a decision where a risk is involved, you balance the potential rewards of the decision against the possible losses. rests on a few assumptions
- everyone is prone to take risks, this proneness varies per person and is influenced by the potential reward of taking the risk
- perception is influenced by experience or accidental losses
- the more risks an individual takes, the more losses and the more gains they will have
risk compensation
as people perceive themselves as safer or better equipped against danger, they are more likely to take more risk. e.g. added security of seatbelts encourages more careless driving
