Rehearsing Disaster: Understanding Earthquake Preparedness Behavior in an Interactive Environment

通过实验和焦点小组，该项目使用交互式数字环境来调查地震灾害准备行为的采用和维持机制。它探索了新的沟通工具，以促进这些行为在难以达到的人口：18-29岁。从该项目中获得的见解将有助于制定沟通战略，以解决减少灾害风险这一紧迫的社会问题。研究地点位于俄勒冈州的波特兰大都会区，预计卡斯卡迪亚俯冲带可能发生破坏性地震。作为该项目研究工具开发的数字媒体将作为外联产品发布，通过在太平洋西北部建立法治直接促进国家福利。与当地应急管理人员的合作确保为该项目开发的通信工具促进基本优先事项，并将研究结果交付给将从中受益最多的机构。这一科学研究的贡献，从而支持NSF的使命，以促进科学的进步和提高我们的国家福利。在这种情况下，好处将是提高地震灾害准备的见解，这将挽救生命，经济损失，并减少未来事件中的恐慌，愤怒和混乱。该项目解决了目前对社会认知观点如何应用于备灾的理解中的关键差距。具体的研究目标是：1）描述互动环境对促进与地震准备相关的多种解决途径和问题解决的有效性; 2）评估与地震准备相关的不同观察学习方法的相关性; 3）量化合作对采取准备行动的信心和倾向的影响;（4）评估通过数字网络进行的社会处理对行为采纳倾向和批判意识的影响。这些目标将通过四项实验来实现，这些实验使用交互式数字媒体，并得到重点小组的支持，以确保媒体对目标受众的突出性，并增加对实验结果解释的深度。将通过结构方程模型阐明连接实验变量、可能的中介变量和关键因变量（包括自我效能、结果预期、行动意图和准备行动）的途径。将对准备行为的社会影响的研究扩展到数字竞技场是一项创新，与目标受众的媒体消费习惯产生共鸣。虽然社会认知理论在备灾背景下的大多数应用都是横断面研究，但使用交互式数字环境允许采用实验方法来测试和扩展当前的理解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Through experiments and focus groups, this project uses interactive digital environments to investigate the mechanisms through which earthquake disaster preparedness behaviors are adopted and maintained. It explores novel communication tools for promoting those behaviors in the hard-to-reach demographic: 18-29 year-olds. Insights gleaned from the project will help shape communication strategies to solve the urgent societal problem of disaster risk reduction. The study location in the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan Area anticipates a potentially devastating earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone. Digital media developed as research tools in this project will be released as outreach products, contributing directly to national welfare via resilience-building in the Pacific Northwest. Collaborations with local emergency managers ensure that communication tools developed for this project promote essential priorities and that research findings are delivered to the agencies that will benefit most from them. This scientific research contribution thus supports NSF's mission to promote the progress of science and to advance our national welfare. In this case, the benefits will be insights to improve earthquake disaster preparedness, which will save lives, economic losses, and reduce panic, anger and confusion during a future event. This project addresses key gaps in current understandings of how social cognitive perspectives apply to disaster preparedness. Specific research objectives are to: 1) characterize the effectiveness of interactive environments for promoting multiple solution pathways and problem-solving related to earthquake preparedness; 2) evaluate the relevance of different approaches to observational learning related to earthquake preparedness; 3) quantify the effects of cooperation on confidence in and inclination to take preparedness action; and 4) assess the effects of social processing through digital networks on behavior adoption inclination and critical awareness. These objectives will be accomplished through four experiments using interactive digital media, supported by focus groups that ensure salience of the media to target audiences and add depth to experimental result interpretation. Pathways linking experimental variables, possible mediating variables, and key dependent variables including self-efficacy, outcome expectations, intent to act, and preparedness action will be elucidated via structural equation modeling. Extending the study of social influences on preparedness behavior into the digital arena is an innovation that resonates with the media consumption habits of the target audience. While most applications of social cognitive theory to the disaster preparedness context are cross-sectional studies, use of interactive digital environments permits an experimental approach with which to test and extend current understandings. The project also directly engages dozens of undergraduates in the research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.