An Assessment of Change in Risk Perception and Optimistic Bias for Hurricanes Among Gulf Coast Residents

Abstract

This study focuses on levels of concern for hurricanes among individuals living along the Gulf Coast during the quiescent two-year period following the exceptionally destructive 2005 hurricane season. A small study of risk perception and optimistic bias was conducted immediately following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Two years later, a follow-up was done in which respondents were recontacted. This provided an opportunity to examine changes, and potential causal ordering, in risk perception and optimistic bias. The analysis uses 201 panel respondents who were matched across the two mail surveys. Measures included hurricane risk perception, optimistic bias for hurricane evacuation, past hurricane experience, and a small set of demographic variables (age, sex, income, and education). Paired t-tests were used to compare scores across time. Hurricane risk perception declined and optimistic bias increased. Cross-lagged correlations were used to test the potential causal ordering between risk perception and optimistic bias, with a weak effect suggesting the former affects the latter. Additional cross-lagged analysis using structural equation modeling was used to look more closely at the components of optimistic bias (risk to self vs. risk to others). A significant and stronger potentially causal effect from risk perception to optimistic bias was found. Analysis of the experience and demographic variables' effects on risk perception and optimistic bias, and their change, provided mixed results. The lessening of risk perception and increase in optimistic bias over the period of quiescence suggest that risk communicators and emergency managers should direct attention toward reversing these trends to increase disaster preparedness.

Decision Science Perspectives on Hurricane Vulnerability: Evidence from the 2010–2012 Atlantic Hurricane Seasons

“…For example, people who had recently suffered damage in a wildfire gave higher estimates of the likelihood of a future fire, compared to those who had not suffered damage [42]. In the case of hurricanes, Trumbo et al [43] found that during the quiescent three-year period after the 2005 hurricane season, when Katrina and Rita struck, hurricane risk perception declined and optimism bias (believing others are more likely to suffer harm than oneself) increased. Additional evidence of a recency effect on preparation decisions can be found in voluntary flood insurance purchases, which were predicted in one study by peak storm surge heights during the most recent hurricane [44].…”

Influences of Sense of Place on Farming Households’ Relocation Willingness in Areas Threatened by Geological Disasters: Evidence from China

“…Some studies have shown that females are significantly more likely than males to reloacte/evacuate (Whitehead et al 2000;Bateman and Edwards 2002;Lazo et al 2015;Lim et al 2016), although Stein et al's (2013) study showed that gender had no significant impact on household evacuation willingness. Some studies have shown that older residents are more likely to relocate/evacuate than other age groups (Lazo et al 2015), but others have found the opposite effect (Kaniasty and Norris 1995;Trumbo et al 2014;Lazo et al 2015) or no effect (Huang et al 2012;Stein et al 2013). A few studies have shown that individuals with higher educational levels were more likely to relocate/evacuate than others (Hasan et al 2011), as well as revealing other differences in evacuation decision making (Whitehead et al 2000;Stein et al 2013;Lazo et al 2015;Lim et al 2016).…”

“…Some studies have found that relocation/evacuation likelihood increased with income (Bateman and Edwards 2002;Dash and Gladwin 2007), decreased with income (Trumbo et al 2014), or was insensitive to income (Whitehead et al 2000;Huang et al 2012;Stein et al 2013;Yang 2016). Lazo et al (2015) found that household size had no significant impact on household evacuation willingness.…”

Sizing Up a Superstorm: Exploring the Role of Recalled Experience and Attribution of Responsibility in Judgments of Future Hurricane Risk

“…However, because our survey was conducted approximately two years after Hurricane Sandy made landfall, it is possible that survey responses may reflect, in part, inaccuracies in recall that are likely to intrude as the time between a remembered event and the present grows larger . For instance, hurricane risk judgment may change over time, such that individuals develop an increasing optimistic bias—i.e., the propensity to see others as more at risk than oneself; lacking longitudinal measurement of study variables, we cannot determine whether this might have been the case among this study sample. Second, as mentioned above, the cross‐sectional nature of the data limit inferences about causal relationships between key study variables.…”

“…Finally, risk judgment may change over time, especially as the distance between the present and one's experience with the weather or natural‐hazard‐related risk increases . For instance, in a longitudinal study of Gulf Coast residents, hurricane‐related risk perception decreased over time while optimistic bias—i.e., perceiving the risk posed to others as greater than risk to self—increased; however, in a longitudinal study of homeowners in Colorado, Champ and Brenkert‐Smith show that perceptions of wildfire risk remained relatively stable, despite intervening wildfire in the area. While recall accuracy for past events is likely to diminish over time, opening the way for a host of biased judgments in general, self‐reported assessments of risk are likely to vary across individuals and contexts given the reconstructive nature of memory and the largely heuristic (vs. systematic) nature of the inferential processes that guide cognitive retrieval and reporting.…”