Psychological Distance and the Mitigation of Interpersonal Risks

在我们日益相互联系的社会中，个人每天做出的许多决定都可能创造、促成或改变其他人面临的风险。也许比在任何其他情况下，个人对危险和自然灾害--如野火、极端风暴事件和入侵害虫--做好准备(或不做准备)的决定，可能会对其他人(包括他们的邻居)面临风险的严重性和可能性产生巨大影响。这个项目将寻求揭示决定人们是否愿意投资于个人昂贵但互惠互利的努力的一些关键因素，以减少自然灾害不仅对他们自己，而且对他们周围的人构成的风险。特别是，PI将探索人们感觉和感知到的自己与其他可能受其行为影响的人之间的身体和心理距离如何影响个人愿意采取多少降低风险的行动。该项目将在许多美国人面临的两个特别相关的问题的背景下研究这些因素：缓解野火和侵入性森林病虫害管理。通过调查和决策实验的结合，PI将测试这些距离感觉如何影响人们在这两个环境中做出的决定。从这项研究中获得的知识将广泛适用于其他涉及这些类型的“个人产生的”风险的情况，如鲁莽驾驶、儿童接种疫苗和金融投资。该项目还将为政策制定者和其他人提供指导，以制定有效的方法，鼓励个人和社区采取积极主动的行动，减少这类风险。了解影响个人愿意投资于代价高昂的缓解与自然灾害有关的人际风险的关键因素，对于改善各种决策背景下的决策至关重要。人际风险的产生是指个体的行为改变了他人面临的风险的概率或收益的过程，因此被称为“个人产生的风险”(IPRS)。当一个人的行为改变了另一个人经历风险的可能性或风险的严重性时，知识产权就发生了。对知识产权的研究有助于我们理解相互依存的风险和风险的社会方面。在这个项目中，PI调查了知识产权决策的一个可能的驱动因素，心理距离。心理距离是一个概念，它捕捉到一个人目前的存在状态与一个物体或概念之间的感知距离。这项研究将在两个有影响力的决策环境中调查心理距离和知识产权产生的关系：缓解野火和侵入性森林病虫害管理。在这些情况下，知识产权具有很高的相关性，因为个人作出的决定直接影响其他人面临的风险。拟议的一套研究将为经济学、心理学和自然资源管理领域的多个文献提供新的知识。研究结果将有助于我们从理论上理解知识产权保护的过程、风险决策的社会层面以及心理距离维度与知识产权保护之间的关系。拟议的工作还将帮助联邦、州和地方机构制定更好的方法，让公民个人参与知识产权缓解行为。

In our increasingly inter-connected society, many of the daily decisions individuals make can create, contribute to, or alter the risks that other people face. Perhaps more than in any other setting, individuals' decisions to prepare (or not) for hazards and natural disasters - such as wildfires, extreme storm events and invasive pests - can hugely impact the severity and likelihood of risks faced by others, including their neighbors. This project will seek to uncover some of the key factors that shape whether people are willing to invest in personally costly but mutually beneficial efforts to reduce the risks that natural hazards pose not only to themselves but also to those around them. In particular, the PI will explore how the physical and psychological distance people feel and perceive between themselves and others who could be affected by their actions influences how much risk-reducing action individuals are willing to take. The project will examine these factors in the context of two particularly relevant problems many people in the U.S. face: wildfire mitigation and invasive forest pest management. Using a combination of surveys and decision-making experiments, the PI will test how these feelings of distance influence the decisions people make in these two settings. The knowledge gained from this research will be widely applicable to other contexts involving these types of "interpersonally produced" risks, such as reckless driving, childhood vaccination, and financial investments. The project will also provide policymakers and others with guidance for developing effective ways to encourage individuals and communities to take proactive action to reduce these sorts of risks.Understanding the key factors that influence individuals' willingness to invest in costly mitigation of natural hazards-related interpersonal risks is critical in order to improve decision-making across a wide range of decision contexts. The production of interpersonal risks refers to the process of individual actions changing the probabilities or payoffs of risks that others face, hence the name "interpersonally produced risks" (IPRs). IPRs occur when the actions of one individual modify either the likelihood of another person's experiencing a risk or the severity of the risk. The study of IPRs contributes to our understanding of interdependent risks and the social aspects of risk. In this project, the PI investigates one possible driver of IPR decision-making, psychological distance. Psychological distance is a concept that captures the perceived distance between an individual's present state of being and an object or concept. The research will investigate the relationship between psychological distance and the production of IPRs in two impactful decision-making contexts: wildfire mitigation and invasive forest pest management. IPRs are highly relevant in these contexts as decisions made by individuals directly affect risks faced by others. The proposed set of studies will contribute new knowledge to multiple literatures within economics, psychology, and natural resources management. Results will contribute to our theoretical understanding of processes underlying IPRs, social aspects of risky decisions, and the relationship between psychological distance dimensions and IPRs. The proposed work will also help federal, state and local agencies develop better methods for engaging individual citizens in IPR mitigation behaviors.