Rehearsing Disaster: Understanding Earthquake Preparedness Behavior in an Interactive Environment

通过实验和焦点小组，本项目使用交互式数字环境来研究地震备灾行为被采用和维持的机制。它探索了新的沟通工具，以促进难以接触到的18-29岁人群的这些行为。从该项目中收集的见解将有助于制定沟通策略，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波特兰市大都会区，预计卡斯卡迪亚俯冲带可能发生毁灭性地震。在这个项目中作为研究工具开发的数字媒体将作为外联产品发布，通过太平洋西北地区的复原力建设直接为国家福利做出贡献。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能够促进基本优先事项，并确保将研究成果交付给将从中受益最多的机构。这一科研贡献支持了NSF促进科学进步和提高国家福利的使命。在这种情况下，收益将是改进地震灾害准备的见解，这将挽救生命，减少经济损失，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视角如何应用于备灾的理解中的关键空白。具体的研究目标是：1)描述互动环境在促进与地震准备相关的多种解决途径和问题解决方面的有效性；2)评估与备灾相关的不同观测学习方法的相关性；3)量化合作对采取准备行动的信心和倾向的影响；4)通过数字网络评估社会加工对行为采纳倾向和批判意识的影响。这些目标将通过使用交互式数字媒体的四个实验来实现，并得到焦点小组的支持，以确保媒体对目标受众的突出性，并增加实验结果解释的深度。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）的途径将通过结构方程模型加以阐明。将社会对准备行为影响的研究扩展到数字领域是一项创新，它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是横断面研究，但交互式数字环境的使用允许采用实验方法来测试和扩展当前的理解。该项目还直接吸引了数十名本科生参与研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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.