Is storm surge scary? The influence of hazard, impact, and fear-based messages and individual differences on responses to hurricane risks in the USA

Morss, Rebecca E.; Cuite, Cara L.; Demuth, Julie L.; Hallman, William K.; Shwom, Rachael

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.01.023

Cited by 61 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…35 36 IBW do not significantly impact warning perception and understanding, nor do they result in greater 37 behavioral response compared to SW. This result contradicts the majority of previous studies that used 38 hypothetical situations to collect their data (Casteel, 2016;Morss et al, 2018;Weyrich et al, 2018). We 39 speculate that this difference in research findings can be explained by the different levels of fear experienced 40 in a hypothetical and a real crisis.…”

contrasting

confidence: 76%

Responses to severe weather warnings and affective decision-making

Weyrich¹,

Scolobig²,

Walther³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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1Informing people of an impending hazard can lead them to adopt behavior to mitigate the harm. In this study 2 we examine whether giving more information, and giving it earlier, leads to a greater behavioral response. 3Our results, which are contextually dependent, show that providing more information has no effect on 4 behavior, and that longer lead times lead to less behavioral change. These results conflict with those from 5 previous studies. These previous studies differed from ours in terms of the research methods: while past 6 studies examined people's anticipated responses to hypothetical warnings, we conducted a field experiment 7 to observe people's responses to actual warnings of real hazards. Theory from cognitive science suggests that 8 this difference matters. In situations of high stress people may make decisions using a faster decision pathway 9 that is rather emotion-driven, while in less stressful situations they are more likely to base their decisions on 10 information. The difference between actual and hypothetical warnings would capture this mismatch in stress 11 levels, and account for the divergent findings. At the same time, the cognitive theory has been hard to test in 12 the field, because of the ethical challenge of submitting people to actually dangerous conditions. Therefore, 13 our results are not only relevant for the design of warning information, but also provide important empirical 14 support for the theory of different decision-making pathways. 15 16

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contrasting

confidence: 76%

Responses to severe weather warnings and affective decision-making

Weyrich¹,

Scolobig²,

Walther³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Moreover, even though the textual component in the warning messages was kept rather neutral, they could have induced fear in the participants. A recent study by Morss et al () found that fear‐based messages not only increased taking protective action intentions and risk perceptions compared to neutral messages but also increased perceptions that the information was overblown. Their findings are supported by fear literature (Witte, , ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dealing with inconsistent weather warnings: effects on warning quality and intended actions

Weyrich

Scolobig

Patt

2019

Meteorological Applications

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In the past four decades, the private weather forecast sector has been developing next to National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, resulting in additional weather providers. This plurality has led to a critical duplication of public weather warnings. For a specific event, different providers disseminate warnings that are more or less severe, or that are visualized differently, leading to inconsistent information that could impact perceived warning quality and response. So far, past research has not studied the influence of inconsistent information from multiple providers. This knowledge gap is addressed here. An inconsistency matrix was developed and employed to categorize the level of inconsistency across multiple warnings. The matrix provides warning pairs inconsistent in visualization, text or both. A survey experiment was conducted in Switzerland (N = 1,335). The results show that half of the people who received warnings from different providers for the same event indicated that these were inconsistent. The evaluation of warning quality and intended actions in a decision scenario characterized by two severe rainfall warnings shows the negative impacts of inconsistency. For example, consistent warnings are least confusing and inconsistent visual and textual warnings are most confusing. However, there are no significant differences in the effects of inconsistent textual information compared to inconsistent visual information on warning quality and intended actions. These findings offer empirical justification to enhance co‐operation between public and private weather providers. To improve warnings, the providers should find an agreement to be consistent either in the text or in the visualization.

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“…People's assessments of and responses to natural hazard risks are also dynamic, as individuals process information and interact with each other to communicate about, interpret, and respond to the changing threat. These dynamic individual and social processes are fundamental aspects of how people perceive and respond to natural hazards (Morss et al 2017). Thus, it is essential to understand them in order to develop effective risk communication and emergency response policies that help protect people from harm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The prevalence of social media use offers new opportunities for studying the dynamic risk information ecosystem that emerges when hazards threaten (Morss et al 2017). Although in the weather community social media is often discussed in terms of its potential for authorities to distribute risk information, it can offer much more.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We focus on the time period leading up to landfall because we are interested in investigating evolving forecast and preparedness information as a form of risk communication that can influence people's risk assessments and responses. Moreover, the dynamics of this time period is understudied compared to the response and recovery phases of a hazard, even as studied through social media (Shelton et al 2014;Morss et al 2017). The goal of this analysis is to gain a deeper understanding of the complex and evolving ways that people assess and respond to their risk from the dynamic threat of an approaching hurricane by analyzing social media narratives from a sample of individuals who were at high risk leading up to Sandy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Sometimes da #beachlife ain't always da wave”: Understanding People’s Evolving Hurricane Risk Communication, Risk Assessments, and Responses Using Twitter Narratives

Demuth

Morss

Palen

et al. 2018

Weather, Climate, and Society

Self Cite

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This article investigates the dynamic ways that people communicate, assess, and respond as a weather threat evolves. It uses social media data, which offer unique records of what people convey about their real-world risk contexts. Twitter narratives from 53 people who were in a mandatory evacuation zone in a New York City neighborhood during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 were qualitatively analyzed. The study provides rich insight into the complex, dynamic information behaviors and risk assessments of people at risk, and it illustrates how social media data can be collected, sampled, and analyzed to help provide this understanding. Results show that this sample of people at significant risk attended to forecast information and evacuation orders as well as multiple types of social and environmental cues. Although many tweeted explicitly about the mandatory evacuation order, forecast information was usually referenced only implicitly. Social and environmental cues grew more important as the threat approached and often triggered heightened risk perceptions or protective actions. The results also reveal the importance of different aspects of people’s cognitive and affective risk perceptions as well as specific emotions (e.g., fear, anger) for understanding risk assessments. People discussed a variety of preparatory and protective behavioral responses and exhibited multiple types of coping responses (e.g., humor) as the threat evolved. People’s risk assessments and responses were closely intertwined, and their risk perceptions were not continuously elevated as the hurricane approached; they exhibited different ways of interpreting, coping, and responding as they accessed and processed evolving information about the threat.

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Is storm surge scary? The influence of hazard, impact, and fear-based messages and individual differences on responses to hurricane risks in the USA

Cited by 61 publications

References 86 publications

Responses to severe weather warnings and affective decision-making

Responses to severe weather warnings and affective decision-making

Dealing with inconsistent weather warnings: effects on warning quality and intended actions

“Sometimes da #beachlife ain't always da wave”: Understanding People’s Evolving Hurricane Risk Communication, Risk Assessments, and Responses Using Twitter Narratives

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