Extreme Weather Events and Individual differences in Threat Perception and Behavior

个人以不同的方式解释风险信息：有些人低估了风险，而另一些人高估了风险——这些对错误的偏好可能取决于可识别的个体差异。在极端天气事件（例如，龙卷风、飓风）的背景下，这两种错误都是有问题的。如果灾难来袭，准备不足的人会使自己处于危险之中，而准备过度的人可能会囤积物资，耗尽资源，或为不太可能发生的灾难进行疏散，从而堵塞疏散路线。了解个性特征（例如，冲动、尽责）和社会网络（例如，朋友、家人、同事）的个体差异如何影响人们对风险的解释，对于传达有效的警告和潜在的挽救生命可能至关重要。该奖项将支持一系列四项研究，研究人格特征、社会网络、可用时间和资源等各种因素如何影响人们对风暴准备和撤离意图的风险偏好和决定。这个跨学科的研究项目利用了决策科学、人格心理学和社会网络分析，将提供一个综合的观点，研究人们在面对威胁天气事件时如何做出有关准备和疏散的关键决策。本研究也将为初级研究人员提供网络分析和统计建模的高级培训机会。在了解到即将到来的自然灾害（如飓风）后，人们会权衡潜在的假阳性和假阴性错误的成本。人们可能会面临假阳性错误，即他们付出了准备成本，但灾难并没有发生；或者他们可能会面临假阴性错误，即他们什么都不做，但如果灾难发生，他们可能会付出严重的代价。这两种决策的代价可能截然不同，从造成不便到造成生命损失。目前对灾害相关决策的研究缺乏对影响人们如何衡量这些潜在结果的个人和社会因素的全面了解。为此，该研究项目将采用多方法方法，使用(a)心理学方法来评估个人和环境影响，(b)以自我为中心的社会网络分析来评估人们个人网络组成和结构的影响。本项目研究了三个具体问题：(1)性格和环境因素是否影响人们对自然灾害的认知？(2)这些个体差异对危险相关认知的影响是否由人们赋予假阳性或假阴性错误的不同权重所介导？(3)将危险视为机会是否与从事更危险的危险相关行为有关？这种对自然危险的认知是否会改变人们的行为方式？这些发现有望有助于我们理解个体和环境因素影响人们对风险的解释以及他们的意图和行为的机制。了解人们如何看待他们收到的风险信息，对于计划疏散后勤和决定何时发布警告的官员来说是关键。

Individuals interpret risk information in different ways: some underestimate risk while others overestimate it--and these preferences for one error or another may depend on identifiable individual differences. In the context of extreme weather events (e.g., tornadoes, hurricanes), both of these errors are problematic. Under-preparers put themselves at risk if a disaster strikes, whereas over-preparers may hoard supplies, deplete resources, or evacuate for an unlikely disaster and thus clog evacuation routes. Understanding how individual differences in personality traits (e.g., impulsivity, conscientiousness) and social networks (e.g., friends, family, coworkers) influence people's interpretations of risk may be essential to communicating effective warnings and potentially saving lives. This award will support a series of four studies that examine how various factors such as personality traits, social networks, and available time and resources affect people's risk preferences and decisions about storm preparation and intentions to evacuate. This interdisciplinary research project, which draws on decision science, personality psychology, and social network analysis, will provide an integrative view of how people make key decisions about preparation and evacuation in the face of threatening weather events. This research will also provide advanced training opportunities in network analysis and statistical modeling for junior researchers.After learning about an approaching natural disaster such as a hurricane, people weigh the costs of potential false positive and false negative errors. People may face a false positive error in which they pay the costs to prepare yet the disaster does not occur, or they may face a false negative error in which they do nothing yet risk paying severe costs if the disaster occurs. The costs of both types of decisions can differ radically, from inconvenience to loss of life. Current research on disaster-related decision-making lacks a comprehensive understanding of the individual and social factors that influence how people weigh these potential outcomes. To this end, the research project will take a multi-method approach using (a) psychological methods for assessing personal and environmental influences, (b) egocentric social network analysis for assessing the influences of people's personal network composition and structure. This project addresses three specific questions: (1) Do trait and environmental factors influence people's cognition about natural hazards? (2) Is the influence of these individual differences on hazard-related cognition mediated by the differential weights people assign to false positive or false negative errors? (3) Is seeing a hazard as an opportunity related to engaging in more risky hazard-related behaviors, and does this cognition about a natural hazard change how people behave? The findings are expected to contribute to our understanding of the mechanism by which individual and environmental factors influence people's interpretation of risk as well as their intentions and behaviors. Understanding how people perceive the risk information they receive is key for officials who plan evacuation logistics and decide when to issue warnings.