RAPID: Ecological Shocks, Risk Perception, and Economic Decision Making

牲畜管理受到两大风险来源的困扰：环境变化和经济安全。这种情况在农村和干旱地区更为明显，那里的基础设施发展和市场准入可能更为有限，干旱导致营养质量下降，影响牲畜产出（体重减轻、疾病和寄生虫易感性以及死亡率）。尽管与生态冲击相关的放牧风险，但人们对不同家庭的经济预测差异知之甚少。该项目将测试在行为生态学的模拟和实验室环境中用于理解经济行为的积极和消极冲击的模型是否也可以应用于自然实验，以评估风险暴露、冲击分类和经济预测的变化。这项研究探讨了大飓风过后家庭的决策。关于生态冲击、风险偏好和经济决策之间关系的关键数据和发现将传播给组织和官员，以协助未来的经济规划。该项目还为研究生和本科生提供严格的科学数据收集和分析方法方面的培训，培养开展未来科学工作的能力，并扩大历史上在科学领域代表性不足的群体的参与。研究人员探讨了1)飓风引起的资产损失的变化如何影响人们将其分类为积极或消极，以及2)生态冲击分类（积极与消极）和先验条件（好与差）如何影响人们对未来生态条件，羊群管理策略以及从事生产劳动的可能性的推理。这些问题将通过半结构化访谈和来自四个社区100个家庭的调查来探讨。数据收集的目的将是记录个人如何描述飓风后家庭损失的变化范围，他们如何将最近飓风的损失与过去的灾难性人为灾害相比较，以及他们对未来生态冲击和经济行为的预测。人类学、发展经济学和其他科学领域的灾害研究主要集中在自然灾害事件对风险偏好和经济决策的负面冲击上，很少探索灾后环境中可能出现的积极生态冲击。行为生态学家在模拟模型和实验室环境中模拟了经济行为的积极和消极冲击，但没有在自然环境中模拟。该项目在灾后环境下进行了一项新颖的自然实验。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。

Livestock management is plagued by two major sources of risk: environmental variability and economic security. This is experienced more acutely in rural and arid settings, where infrastructural development and market access may be more limited, and where drought contributes to lower nutrient quality impacting livestock outcomes (weight loss, disease and parasite susceptibility, and mortality). Despite the risks to herding associated with ecological shocks, little Is known about how economic forecasting varies among households. This project will test whether models that have been used in simulations and laboratory settings in behavioral ecology to understand positive and negative shocks on economic behavior can also be applied in a natural experiment to evaluate variation in risk exposure, shock categorization, and economic forecasting. The research explores household decision-making in the aftermath of a major hurricane. Critical data and findings about the relationship between ecological shock, risk preference, and economic decision-making will be disseminated to organizations and officials to assist with future economic planning. The project also provides training for graduate and undergraduate students in methods of rigorous, scientific data collection and analysis, builds capacity for conducting future scientific work, and broadens the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science.The researchers explore 1) how variation in hurricane-induced asset loss influence people to categorize it as either positive or negative, and 2) how ecological shock categorization (positive vs negative) and prior condition (good vs poor) influences how people reason about future ecological conditions, herd management strategies, and their likelihood for engaging in productive labor. These questions will be explored using semi-structured interviews and surveys from 100 households across four communities. Data collection will be oriented toward documenting how individuals characterize the range of variation in post-hurricane household losses, how they perceive loss from the recent hurricane compared to past catastrophic anthropogenic disasters, and what projections they have with respect to future ecological shocks and economic behavior. Studies of disasters in anthropology, development economics, and other scientific fields have focused on the negative shocks that natural disaster events have on risk preferences and economic decision-making, seldom exploring what positive ecological shocks may be emerging in post-disaster contexts. Behavioral ecologists have modeled positive and negative shocks on economic behavioral in simulated models and in laboratory environments, but not in naturalistic settings. This project conducts a novel natural experiment in this post-disaster context.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.