Comparative Behavioral Response to Future Earthquakes: The Cases of Turkey and Usa

Abstract

Loss of life and property from earthquakes is extensive and continues to grow in developing societies. On the other hand culture and social change have become key concepts in studies of mitigation of both natural and human-made disasters. The primary aim of this study is to demonstrate the impact of knowledge in terms of risk information on what people have thought and done to be prepared for the next probable earthquakes in both the USA and Turkey. In this cross-cultural comparative study, similar data to those from the Mileti's Bay Area study (1995) have been collected and analyzed. The present study revealed that for risks, knowledge alone is not sufficient and societal factors–along with the urgent need for cultural change in accordance with sustainable development–should be taken into consideration.

Risk Perception, Experience, and Objective Risk: A Cross‐National Study with European Emergency Survivors

“…The greatest impact was found for flood experience on perceived risk of a flood, followed by earthquake experience on perceived risk of an earthquake, which suggests that experience is especially important regarding events that are less universal. These results are in line with previous results concerning the impact of experience on perceived risk of floods and earthquakes . Increased perceived risk with experience may be explained by the availability heuristic and SARF theory; it is proposed that people assess the ease with which events can be recalled when making judgments about risk.…”

“…Concerning perceived risk of an earthquake, the values assigned by participants in Turkey and Italy were much larger compared to participants in the other countries. In general, participants from Turkey scored very high across all perceived risks, which is line with previous results . The fact that, as discussed earlier, Turkey is no stranger to experiencing earthquakes and the finding of cross‐over effects with other emergencies affecting private settings might partly explain this.…”

“…Previous, direct experience with a hazard has been found to influence risk perception . For instance, Ho et al .…”

The social psychology of seismic hazard adjustment: re-evaluating the international literature

“…However, research from other parts of the world including Iran, Turkey, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Romania and New Zealand tends toward the same overall conclusion as the US-based research: In sum, a large proportion of respondents do nothing or very little to adjust to seismic hazards, and when they do take action, it is significantly more likely to be response and recovery-related than mitigative (Asgary and Willis, 1997;Kasapoglu and Ecevit, 2004b;Kirschenbaum, 2005;Palm, 1998;Paradise, 2006;Spittal et al, 2008).…”

“…A German study also indicated a limited, yet significant belief that earthquakes were caused by God's punishment or by nature taking revenge (Plapp and Werner, 2006). Theological explanations of earthquakes are prevalent in some Muslim communities, where earthquakes have a special religious and scriptural significance as instances of divine manifestation and retribution, and as precursors of Judgment Day (Kasapoglu and Ecevit, 2004b;Paradise, 2005). Historically, ground-shaking has prompted communities to create mythical narratives to explain its occurrence, and many of these survive to the present day, both in parallel to and as competitors with, scientific narratives.…”