John Mcclure

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Verified

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• DPhil
• Professor Emeritus at Victoria University of Wellington

Throughout human history, societies have been established and have developed, usually as a result of people’s desire to profit from, benefit from, enjoy or utilize the physical, economic and aesthetic amenities afforded by their natural environment, in areas that increase societal exposure to volcanic, wildfire, storm, flooding, tsunami and seismic...

Research on risk judgments about hazards has not examined risk perception inside and outside the affected regions when a disaster occurs in an unexpected location. This research examined preparedness and judgments of earthquake risk after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in three New Zealand cities: Christchurch, Wellington, and Palmerston North. W...

Research has shown that experiencing a single disaster influences people's risk judgments about the hazard, but few studies have studied how multiple disasters in different locations affect risk judgments. Following two earthquake sequences in two different regions (Christchurch, Cook Strait), this study examined earthquake risk judgments, non-fata...

Purpose This discussion paper argues that holding independence as the central goal for rehabilitation has limitations that hinder successful outcomes. It shows why autonomy and social engagement should also serve as goals of rehabilitation, in order to achieve quality of life and effective functioning. Methods The paper reviews problems arising fr...

Both climate scientists and non-scientists (laypeople) attribute extreme weather events to various influences. Laypeople’s attributions for these events are important as these attributions likely influence their views and actions about climate change and extreme events. Research has examined laypeople’s attribution scepticism about climate change i...

Even when perception of risks such as earthquakes is high, preparation is generally low. Previous research shows relatively minor changes in the framing of target issues can impact decisions. In the area of risk, the terms "natural hazards" and "natural disasters" are used inconsistently. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework, we con...

Natural hazards such as earthquakes and tsunami can have adverse impacts on infrastructures and populations globally. In Wellington, New Zealand, perception of these risks is high but many people are poorly prepared. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour in a pre-registered longitudinal study, we assessed intentions, cognitions, and beliefs about t...

Probabilistic statements can be a valuable tool for natural hazard risk communication, including forecasts. However, individuals often have a poor understanding of such probabilistic forecasts caused by them distorting their interpretations of event likelihoods towards the end of the time window and discounting the risk today. We investigated the u...

The Wellington region has a history of tectonic movement and damaging earthquakes. Social research on Wellington’s earthquake risk is limited but has explored aspects of public education and issues around preparedness and resilience. As part of the Wellington It’s Our Fault project and QuakeCoRE a New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission funded Ce...

The unpredictability of earthquakes poses a significant challenge to examining and understanding the effects of these events on risk-related perceptions and behaviour. Natural experiments, a type of quasi-experimental method, allow for close approximations of treatment-control designs when data collection and earthquake events coincide. This study...

Primary objective: People often misattribute stroke survivors’ symptoms to other causes such as their personality, especially when the survivors are young. As a result, these stroke survivors experience feelings of resentment towards and from their acquaintances, and may struggle to retain employment. This study aimed to clarify how people’s misatt...

We investigated responses to the 2013 Cook Strait earthquake sequence, New Zealand. This included two foreshocks (M5.7 and M5.8) and a mainshock doublet pair: M6.5 Cook Strait (CS) earthquake on 21st July and M6.6 Lake Grassmere (LG) earthquake on Friday 16th August. We examined relationships between preparedness, experience and beliefs during the...

People tolerate different levels of risk owing to a variety of hazards. Previous research shows that the psychometric properties of hazards predict people's tolerance of them. However, this work has not taken into account events such as earthquakes. The present study tested how earthquakes score vis-à-vis risk properties and risk tolerance as compa...

Social norms have been successfully applied in health promotion and environmental conservation, but their potential for encouraging natural hazard preparation is relatively untested. This research extends the focus theory of normative conduct to natural hazards and cognitive-behavioral outcomes by examining whether focusing individuals on descripti...

Although many countries have legislation requiring strengthening of earthquake prone buildings, there are significant obstacles to retrofitting these buildings to make them more resilient. This research examines actions in regard to earthquake prone commercial and public buildings in Wellington and checks on private homes following the 2010/2011 Ca...

Earthquakes are a major hazard around the world (Bjornerud, 2016). A recent example is New Zealand, where three major earthquake events occurred within a six-year period. The 2010–11 earthquakes in Canterbury, centred close to the city of Christchurch, led to 185 fatalities, mainly due to two collapsed buildings and crumbling facades (Crampton and...

With visible disabilities, observers tend to overgeneralise from the disability. In contrast, with invisible disabilities such as traumatic brain injury and stroke, observers often fail to allow for challenges resulting from the disability. Persons who have suffered a stroke claim that people misunderstand their symptoms and stigmatise them as a re...

Motivating household preparedness for earthquakes can be difficult, especially given the infrequent and varying nature of major events. Past research has shown that people's experiences contribute to their beliefs about whether, and how, they should prepare for earthquakes. Direct experience of a disaster can be a strong motivator of preparedness;...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how framing messages about earthquake risk affect judgements about legislation requiring the strengthening of earthquake-prone buildings. Design/methodology/approach: Scenarios described the legislation with a general population sample (n=271). Two types of framing effects were examined in a 2 (va...

This study examines people’s response actions in the first 30 min after shaking stopped following earthquakes in Christchurch and Wellington, New Zealand, and Hitachi, Japan. Data collected from 257 respondents in Christchurch, 332 respondents in Hitachi, and 204 respondents in Wellington revealed notable similarities in some response actions immed...

According to difference-based (e.g. counterfactual/covariational) models of causal judgement, the epistemic state of the agent should not affect judgements of cause. Four experiments examined opportunity chains in which a physical event (distal cause) enabled a subsequent proximal cause to produce an outcome. All four experiments showed that when t...

Social norms are the perceptions of what relevant others do and approve/disapprove of, and these tend to influence people’s behaviours. This literature review explores the use of social norms to promote pro-environmental behaviour, and explores the application of norms to encourage people to prepare for natural disasters. Research applying social n...

Maximising educational attainment is important for both individuals and societies. However, understanding of why some students achieve better than others is far from complete. Motivation and achievement data from a sample of 782 secondary-school students in New Zealand reveal that two specific types of outcome goals, namely maximal levels of aspira...

The impact of uncertainty on Disaster Risk Reduction decision-making has become a pressing issue for debate over recent years. How do key officials interpret and accommodate uncertainty in science advice, forecasts and warnings into their decision making? Volcanic eruptions present a particularly uncertain hazard environment, and to accommodate thi...

The issuing of forecasts and warnings of natural hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquake aftershock sequences and extreme weather often involves the use of probabilistic terms, particularly when communicated by scientific advisory groups to key decision-makers, who can differ greatly in relative expertise and function in the decision...

The M6.5 Cook Strait earthquake of 21st July 3013 and the M6.6 Lake Grassmere earthquake of 16th August 2013 were felt widely across both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Shaking was felt throughout the Wellington region and some building damage occurred within Wellington City. In October 2013, the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at M...

Underachievement and failure to complete school have long-term negative consequences for students. Aspirations regarding completion of secondary school that predict achievement outcomes are related to factors amenable to intervention. This study investigates relationships between academic achievement and self-reported educational aspirations, motiv...

Primary objective: To determine how visible markers of brain injury interact with people's knowledge about brain injury to influence people's attributions for undesirable behaviours of a person with brain injury. RESEARCH DESIGN, METHOD AND PROCEDURES: Scenarios in Experiment 1 (n = 98) and Experiment 2 (n = 148) described an adolescent pictured w...

The city of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, is exposed to a wide range of potentially devastating impacts from various natural hazards. It is situated in one of the most active seismic regions in New Zealand, creating a significant earthquake risk. Another hazard to which it is exposed is that of tsunami from local and distant sources. Given the...

Understanding how people interpret risks and choose actions based on their interpretations is vital to any strategy for disaster reduction. We review relevant literature with the aim of developing a conceptual framework to guide future research in this area. We stress that risks in the context of natural hazards always involve interactions between...

Wegner’s theory of conscious will applies Michotte’s causal perception model to people’s consciousness of will. The model proposes that people’s perception of conscious will reflects causal inferences about the temporal priority of the intention, the consistency of the intention with the action, and the exclusivity of their intention as the cause....

The hidden nature of brain injury means that it is often difficult for people to understand the sometimes challenging behaviors that individuals exhibit. The misattribution of these behaviors may lead to a lack of consideration and public censure if the individual is seen as simply misbehaving. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of vis...

Mitigating climate change is recognized as an increasingly urgent task that requires understanding a range of different strategies, including voluntary behavior change. Among the psychological barriers to behavior change are perceptions of powerlessness and the commons dilemma. This paper examines the association between these factors in a sample o...

Reports an error in "A longitudinal investigation of motivation and secondary school achievement using growth mixture modeling" by Flaviu A. Hodis, Luanna H. Meyer, John McClure, Kirsty F. Weir and Frank H. Walkey (Journal of Educational Psychology, , , np). In Figure 5, the eight curves, corresponding to the 8 different subsamples, are represented...

Objective: Social psychological theories such as attribution theory have been applied to conditions such as depression and physical disability, but not to traumatic brain injury (TBI). The goal of this paper is to show that that attribution theory and related concepts help to explain the public's misconceptions about TBI and other challenges faced...

Research has found a relation between motivation and attributions for success and failure. However, few studies have clarified the relationship of attributions to school achievement and possible cultural differences in this relationship. To investigate this issue, 5333 secondary students (European, Asian, Maori, Pacific) rated four common attributi...

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 103(2) of Journal of Educational Psychology (see record 2011-10421-007). In Figure 5, the eight curves, corresponding to the 8 different subsamples, are represented with the same symbol (i.e., empty squares). The original figure, as included in the accepted manuscript, represents...

The Wellington region has a history of tectonic movement and damaging earthquakes. Social research on Wellington’s earthquake risk is limited, but has explored aspects of public education and issues around preparedness and resilience. As part of the Wellington ‘It’s Our Fault’ project this document contains a listing of reports, papers and other ma...

Building on research into flash flood fatalities, the New South Wales State Emergency Service (NSW SES) recently funded a literature review (through the Natural Disaster Mitigation Program) exploring pedestrian and motorist safety during floods. The review looked at risk perception, the influence of warning systems, human behaviour, the activities...

Student involvement in extracurricular activities including sport and part-time work is considered to have an influence on achievement, yet there are conflicting views on whether the effect is negative or positive. Data were collected from 2,257 secondary students to investigate the relationship of different participation patterns with grade averag...

Previous research has examined judgments about earthquake likelihood after citizens have experienced an earthquake, but has not compared judgments in the affected region with other regions. Following the Darfield (Canterbury) earthquake, this research compared earthquake risk judgments in the affected region and those outside the region. Participan...

This study examined changes in the judgments of the risk of earthquakes before and after the 2010 Darfield, Canterbury earthquake in three cities: Christchurch (Canterbury), Wellington and Palmerston North. Christchurch citizens were chosen because of their direct experience of the earthquake, whereas Wellington and Palmerston North were chosen bec...

During natural hazard crises such as earthquakes, tsunami, and volcanic eruptions, a number of critical challenges arise in emergency management decision-making. A multidisciplinary approach bridging psychology and natural hazard sciences has the potential to enhance the quality of these decisions. Psychological research into the public understandi...

The positive and negative framing of messages about a risk influences people's intentions to adopt precautions. Framing research has confounded the framing of outcomes (experiencing harm and avoiding harm) with the framing of preventive actions (taking or not taking preventive action). A study manipulated these two factors with judgments about the...

To determine whether visible markers of brain injury shape people's causal attributions for the behaviors of the person with the injury and their expectations that those behaviors will persist for 5 years. Experimental scenarios described an adolescent boy with a brain injury (pictured either with or without a head scar) who showed 4 behavior chang...

New Zealand's previous examination-based secondary assessment system can be viewed as encompassing cultural values presenting unfair challenges for indigenous and other non-majority students. The standards-based National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) incorporates enhanced flexibility, student choice, and grading practices independen...

We investigate whether people prefer voluntary causes to physical causes in unfolding causal chains and whether statistical (covariation, sufficiency) principles can predict how people select explanations. Experiment 1 shows that while people tend to prefer a proximal (more recent) cause in chains of unfolding physical events, causality is traced t...

Many citizens misunderstand the actions of persons with brain injury, and these misunderstandings hamper rehabilitation. A specific misunderstanding is where people misattribute behaviours resulting from brain injury to the injured person's personality or life stage (e.g., adolescence). The present study examined if this pattern is explained by the...

This book provides a lucid survey of the major viewpoints in social psychology concerning people's self-awareness (or lack of it), their explanations of their own actions, and their cognitive illusions and self-misunderstandings. In this readable but scholarly review, John McClure examines the major approaches to social cognition developed in Ameri...

People often show a bias of attributing their own actions to more positive causes (e.g., generosity) than other persons' actions. Models of paranoia suggest links between paranoia and negative construals of others' intentions. Research on these biases has focused on causal attributions from two explainer perspectives, the agent (the person performi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show whether positive or negative framing of preparation messages leads to higher intentions to prepare for earthquakes, and whether the more important component of the message is the framing of the preparation action or the framing of the outcome of not preparing. Design/methodology/approach Four message co...

Individual student characteristics such as competence motivation, achievement values, and goal orientations have been related in meaningful ways to task attainment. The standards-based National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) was developed in New Zealand with the intention of strengthening connections between student learning behaviou...

The experiment determined first whether visible markers of brain injury shape judgements of severity of injury and time since injury; and secondly whether these two judgements predict attributions for undesirable actions performed by an adolescent with brain-injury. Scenarios presented a photograph of an adolescent, in one condition with a head sca...

There is a need to clarify why people who are at risk from natural disasters such as earthquakes are often less prepared than they could be. This study of residents in Wellington, New Zealand (N = 358), tested demographic and psychological predictors of two aspects of earthquake preparation: survival actions (e.g., storing water) and damage-mitigat...

Causal attributions for events are shaped by information about causal mechanisms that contribute to the events. In the case of damage from earthquakes, these mechanisms include the design of buildings. Three studies presented scenarios drawn from actual reports of recent earthquakes (Kobe, Japan and Northridge, California, USA), including statement...

Four experiments investigated judgments about voluntary human actions and physical causes that were embedded in causal chains ending in negative outcomes (e.g., a forest fire). Causes were judged for their explanatory quality, their effect on the probability of the outcome, and the extent to which they could be socially controlled. Results supporte...

Attributions are shaped by information about the causal mechanisms that produce outcomes. Two studies examined the effect of mechanism information on attributions for earthquake damage and judgments that the damage could be prevented. Scenarios based on actual reports of earthquakes compared 2 messages about the building design of damaged buildings...

Experiments investigated whether attributions for a brain-injured person's behaviours were affected by markers of injury. People misattribute behaviours that result from brain injury to personality or life stages (e.g. adolescence), particularly when there are no visible markers of the injury. Scenarios presented a photograph of an adolescent boy,...

This study investigates the extent to which people's views on the causes and preventability of earthquake damage might be influenced by their degree of exposure to hazard as well as what information they have been given about the hazard. The results show that the provision of hazard zoning information influences judgements on preventability and cau...

Preparedness is a key dependent variable in many studies examining people’s response to disasters such as earthquakes. A feature of many studies on this issue, however, is the lack of attention given to psychometric issues when constructing measures of preparedness. With regard to earthquake preparation, for example, many studies could be greatly i...

Two studies examined lay people's understanding of goals and intentional actions, which are key concepts in folk psychology. The studies show how predictions of goals and actions are affected by actors' beliefs about their abilities and their actual possession of the preconditions required for the actions. In some conditions, the beliefs and the pr...

Frith's (1992) neuropsychological theory of schizophrenia posits a number of fundamental cognitive impairments underpinning the characteristic symptoms of this disorder. One of these is an impairment in the ability to correctly interpret and predict the mental states of other people, so-called theory of mind (ToM). There is already a substantial bo...

There is already a substantial body of evidence supporting Frith's (1992) theory that theory of mind (ToM) is impaired in people with schizophrenia. However, a specific relationship between impaired ToM and paranoid delusions, while intuitively reasonable, has only been demonstrated in two studies to date. A total of 25 participants with schizophre...

Most attribution theories focus on inductive inferences and abstract causal categories. By contrast, goal-based and knowledge structure theories focus on people's perceptions of intentional actions, their deductive inferences, and their concrete explanations of actions. Goal-based theories have demonstrated the importance of goals and intentions as...

Although many people are at risk of natural disasters such as floods, volcanoes, and earthquakes, they are often less prepared than they could be. One factor likely to hinder preparation is an optimistic bias, the judgment that negative events are less likely to happen to oneself than to other people. A study of residents in Wellington (New Zealand...

The relationship between wellbeing and “positive illusions” has not been satisfactorily explained. Two studies investigated this issue through self-report data. Study 1 examined the relationship between wellbeing and positive illusion using happiness scores divided into three groups. Positive illusion in the form of self-enhancing bias was measured...

Research suggests that the content of newspaper and television reports about natural disasters, such as earthquakes, affects people’s fatalistic judgements about these disasters. The present paper contains two studies, Study 1 and Study 2. Study 1 examined features in newspaper reports written at two time points following two major earthquakes: imm...

This study investigated the relationship between living in the present, a key manifestation of psychological well-being comparable with a flow state [Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row], and positive illusion. Living in the present was measured with Shostrom's [Shostrom, E. L. (1964). An...

The Spheres of Control scale (SOC) is a multidimensional measure of locus of control, originally designed to assess personal control, interpersonal control, and socio-political control. This scale is now in its third revision. Although Versions 1 and 2 have been scrutinised using factor analysis, no published studies have yet examined the factor st...

Most attribution theories focus on inductive inferences and abstract causal categories. By contrast, goal-based and knowledge structure theories focus on people's perceptions of intentional actions, their deductive inferences, and their concrete explanations of actions. Goal-based theories have demonstrated the importance of goals and intentions as...

Recent research shows that the framing of causal questions influences the choice of goals and preconditions as explanations of actions. However, research has not examined participants’ judgments as to which causal questions are most relevant to explain actions. Study 1 examined which question (“why” or “how”) participants would use to gain informat...

People are less likely to prepare for earthquakes and other disasters if they make fatalistic attributions for earthquake damage. The way that news media and public agencies present information about disasters may contribute to fatalistic attributions and judgments that the damage cannot be prevented. Attribution theory proposes that the distinctiv...

What makes a goal or a precondition a better explanation of an action or outcome? Recent research shows that whereas goals are preferred for common actions, preconditions are preferred for actions that require substantial resources, particularly when those actions are obstructed. Two studies examined whether judgments of goals and preconditions ref...

Covariational and goal-based approaches to social attribution have been treated as competitive or incommensurable. This article integrates key aspects of each approach. Four studies examined preferences for motivating factors (or goals) and enabling factors (or preconditions) as explanations of intentional actions. The studies manipulated (Studies...

Covariational and goal-based approaches to social attribution have been treated as competitive or incommensurable. This article integrates key aspects of each approach. Four studies examined preferences for motivating factors (or goals) and enabling factors (or preconditions) as explanations of intentional actions. The studies manipulated (Studies...

This study tested the theory that positive illusions and instrumental (problem-focused) coping behaviours are related (Brown, J. D. (1993). Coping with stress: The beneficial role of positive illusions. In A. P. Turnbull, J. M. Patterson, S. K. Behr, D. L. Murphy, J. G. Marquis, & M. J. Blue-Banning (Eds.), Cognitive coping, families, and disabilit...

This study tested the theory that positive illusions and instrumental (problem-focused) coping behaviours are related (Brown, J. D. (1993). Coping with stress: The beneficial role of positive illusions. In A. P. Turnbull, J. M. Patterson, S. K. Behr, D. L. Murphy, J. G. Marquis, & M. J. Blue-Banning (Eds.), Cognitive coping, families, and disabilit...

The context of intergroup relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand was investigated using perceptions of history by Maori (Polynesian-descended) and Pakeha (European- descended) samples from university and the general public. There was strong consensus that the Treaty of Waitangi was the most important event in New Zealand's history, but only Maori, the s...

The context of intergroup relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand was investigated using perceptions of history by Maori (Polynesian-descended) and Pakeha (European-descended) samples from university and the general public. There was strong consensus that the Treaty of Waitangi was the most important event in New Zealand's history, but only Maori, the su...

Previous studies have demonstrated that locus of control and risk attitudes influence preparation for natural hazards. Two studies examined which of these two factors is the stronger predictor of earthquake judgements and preparation. These concepts were linked to attribution models of earthquake damage, by examining the effect of the distinctivene...

Recent research on causal inference suggests that common actions tend to be attributed to goals, whereas difficult actions, if obstructed, are attributed primarily to preconditions. The present studies examine the way that the framing of causal questions influences ratings of goals and preconditions for common actions. The studies test the view tha...

Several theories propose that people discount a cause of an action when other plausible causes are present. This view has recently been challenged, but the relevant research has not been reviewed. In this article, the author reviews research on factors that affect discounting and the use of conjunctive explanations. Some studies are inconclusive be...

Heider (1958) claimed that goals are normally better explanations of actions than preconditions, because people can manipulate the preconditions required for the action. Recent research supporting this view examined common actions where the conditions necessary for the action are readily available. The present studies show that when the preconditio...

Attributional models of depression propose that a negative attributional style is a vulnerability feature in depression, but opinions differ as to whether to assess attributional style for hypothetical or actual events. The present longitudinal study examined whether attributions for hypothetical and real events predicted concurrent and delayed dys...

Using a methodology adapted from Bostrom, Fischhoff, and Morgan (1992), citizens' (N = 96) knowledge about how to prevent damage from earthquakes was compared to knowledge extracted from expert sources. The gaps or misconceptions in knowledge provided a basis for information on earthquake damage prevention. There was an increase in perceived preven...

Do mildly depressed individuals make different judgments about personally relevant events than their normal peers? Previous studies have examined this issue in regard to predictions: the present study considers whether these predictions correspond to recall of past events. Dysphoric and normal subjects made predictions about positive and negative e...

Several aspects of cross-cultural differences in attributions remain relatively unexplored, including the issue of different criteria for success and failure, different forms of achievement motivation, the likelihood of making attributions, and different perceptions of causes on the dimensions of controllability, stability, and locus. The present s...

The discounting principle in attribution theory was considered a well-established phenomenon until recently, when both the empirical and theoretical basis for discounting have been questioned. Many instances of strong discounting have used measures that constrain explanations, such as a forced-choice and bipolar measures. Two studies were performed...