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Fear, Denial, and Sensible Action in the Face of Disasters
Abstract
1. If a person is a homeowner or even a renter, gaining knowledge pertinent to earthquake preparedness can be much more useful. One can learn to anchor tall bookcases to the wall. One can learn about disconnecting natural gas lines leading into the dwelling to prevent fires, and so on. But when a person is living or working in a public building, there is little one can learn that goes beyond common sense. I have first-hand experience on that score. I was in my office at the University of California at Santa Cruz on October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. My office was about 10 miles from the epicenter. When the building began to shake, I got scared, stood up, and took three steps toward the door. But the room was shaking so violently that I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get out of the building, so I did the natural, common sense thing: I dived under my desk—a few seconds later, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf came down. If I had been sitting in my chair I would have been buried by books. The point is, I didn’t require a knowledge of earthquakes, their cause, their effects, or what to do in case one hit; what to do was obvious.
2. According to Debra Hauser’s (2004) review of 11 abstinence-only programs across the nation, “Evaluation of these 11 programs showed few short-term benefits and no lasting, positive impact A few programs showed mild success at improving attitudes and intentions to abstain. No program was able to demonstrate a positive impact on sexual behavior over time…. Worse, [these programs] show some negative impacts on youth’s willingness to use contraception, including condoms, to prevent negative sexual health outcomes related to sexual intercourse. Importantly, only in one state did any program demonstrate short-term success in delaying the initiation of sex; none of these programs demonstrates evidence of long-term success in delaying sexual initiation among youth exposed to the programs or any evidence of success in reducing other sexual risk-taking behaviors among participants.”
... Shared community identities have also been found to strengthen in the aftermath of a disaster due to a renewed sense of shared goals, problems, perceptions of vulnerability and a collapse of previous group boundaries (Ntontis et al., 2018). In effect, communities develop a stronger appreciation of the salience and relevance of risk information to them (Aronson, 2008). However, it is important to note that much of this evidence has been collected in the aftermath of disasters, with less known about how to motivate members of the public to actively search out risk information and act on it before they experience a disaster. ...
... For example, if emergency planners alerted the public about a risk of flooding, they would place greater weight on acting if heavy rain was falling or was forecast by other reputable sources. In line with Aronson (2008), feedback from participants indicated that not being able to relate to or visualize a situation would make them more complacent and less likely to act on risk information. However, whereas Aronson's findings highlighted that experiencing a disaster could make members of the public less complacent by, participants in the current study discussed ways in which the salience of the threats could be made more apparent before disasters occurred. ...
... People wanted the information to be targeted to different local areas rather than at the regional level to increase the salience to them. Previous research has also noted the importance of salience for increasing motivation to attend to and act on risk information (Aronson, 2008;Ntontis et al., 2018). But current findings suggest that this salience may be enhanced before people have experienced a disaster by ensuring that the risk information provided indicates the likelihood of the negative event occurring and the impact of this. ...
With the scope and severity of disasters continuing to grow, encouraging public engagement in emergency preparedness activities is becoming increasingly important. Recently, this has included governments introducing emergency alert systems to warn people of nearby danger to life. However, to date, little research focus has been directed towards understanding what mechanisms affect public willingness to engage in preparing for emergencies. Accordingly, this study aims to improve understanding of what social and cognitive factors impact public willingness to take action to prepare for emergencies. Data was collected from 157 members of the public in one region of the UK using focus groups (N = 36) and questionnaires (N = 121). Thematic analysis of data highlighted six key themes of importance for improving public engagement in emergency preparedness activities: (i) provide information that allows people to Assess potential risks; (ii) Create a sense of community and responsibility; (iii) use Trustworthy sources; (iv) Inform the public regularly about risk updates; (v) provide feasible and practical information on how to Overcome risks; and (vi) Normalize engagement (‘ACTION’). Findings pose important implications for emergency planning theory and practice, including improving how multiagency emergency planning and response partnerships engage with local communities to promote emergency preparedness.
... While there are a relatively small number of empirical studies on the concept of disaster literacy, there is an overwhelming number of studies on disaster preparedness, risk perception, and risk reduction in the context of natural disasters. These authors mainly focus on certain socio-economic characteristics that are important in the context of the mentioned concepts, for example, gender [25][26][27], age [28][29][30][31], income [32][33][34][35], education [36,37], religiosity [38][39][40][41], homeownership [42,43], marriage [44], fear [45,46], and trust in government [47][48][49][50]. Previous disaster experience and disaster training as well as threat and risk perception are also important aspects, as numerous studies have shown [51][52][53][54][55]. ...
... Psychological studies, however, have shown that this is not always the case. Aronson [45] illustrates with two examples from the United States how the fear of disasters, on the one hand, can be used to influence people's behavior, and on the other hand does not necessarily lead to people becoming more disaster literate. He argues that people need recommendations for actions that are concrete, effective, and doable, otherwise they will fall into a state of denial. ...
... However, the results also show that fear does not have a positive association with all indicators of disaster literacy, which especially applies to the practical skills of stages C and D, such as evacuation routes, knowledge about the responsible authorities, disaster training, finding a shelter, first aid, and the assistance of others during a natural disaster. This supports the arguments of Aronson [45] who shows that under certain circumstances, the fear of natural disasters could lead to an improvement of disaster literacy. The perception of the frequency of natural disasters also shows statistically significant positive associations with two disaster literacy indicators, Warnings (stage B) and Awareness (stage D). ...
Based on a survey of 502 participants conducted in 2020/2021, this study investigates the state of natural disaster literacy in the Iranian capital of Tehran, which is one of the main metropolitan areas of the country. The results of the empirical investigation using logistic regressions suggest that household income level, trust in Iran's natural disaster management, fear of natural disasters, perceived frequency of natural disasters, and internet usage show positive associations with natural disaster literacy. Additionally, a natural disaster literacy index (DLI) for Tehran City is created, ranging from 0 to 100, using 14 natural disaster literacy indicators. Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimations with the final index provide additional evidence of previous findings. When comparing the average DLI scores of the northern and southern phone districts, spatial inequality within Tehran City becomes visible, where the northern subsample has significantly higher DLI scores than the southern subsample. The conclusion highlights the limited impact of natural disaster experience and formal education on natural disaster literacy, emphasizing the effectiveness of specialized disaster training programs especially targeted at low-income households. Moreover, increasing trust between citizens and the organizations responsible for natural disaster management and educating citizens about the possible risks and frequency of natural disasters in the region help to motivate citizens to be better prepared.
... If people are faced with uncertain consequences of risks and if they do not have the resources to address these risks properly, they tend to resolve this cognitive dissonance in order to go on with their every-day life (Aronson 2008). This observation has to be considered when talking about successful ways of climate change communication examining the role of fearful messages. ...
... But in our project we do have families who already reached a level of six or seven tons. But, of course those are interested in these issues anyway…" In education on climate mitigation this kind of concrete suggestions is seen as very helpful and is in line with findings from studies on environmental communication (Aronson 2008). ...
... Even though most viewers saw the movie as fiction and not scientific fact, a significant amount was more committed to taking action than before seeing the movie. But, this movie as well works with fear and the authors here come to a similar conclusion asAronson (2008),Ereaut and Segnit (2006), and others discussed in chapter 2.3.3, which is that a terrifying message is not helping to change behavior if precise, effective, and doable strategies are offered. ...
This study addresses in particular research gaps in cultural sociology and in the analysis of climate change communication. Narratives have long played a significant role in cultural sociological analysis of empirical data. However, a systematic approach to social stories has yet to be developed and presents a gap in recent research in the realm of young cultural sociology. Following among others Smith’s model of genre an integrated model of cultural narrative analysis aims at integrating vital elements of narrative theory to construct a systematically advanced analysis tool. Thus, this study provides a possibility to make narrative analysis fruitful for cultural sociology by acknowledging and integrating the binary structure of social discourse as paradigm of cultural sociology. It thus pays tribute to the understanding of culture as an independent variable in the analysis of social phenomena. It shows how narrative analysis can benefit from cultural sociology’s understanding of culture. This model is applied to the discourse about climate change. The debate about the ecological crisis has found its way into research programs of social sciences for some time now and the concept of narratives is embedded in various existing studies. However, these studies often focus on either media coverage of climate change and here often on the perception of climate policies or the perception of climate change in the eyes of laypeople. With its methodical and theoretical design this study addresses this gap in climate communication research by focusing on the messenger’s perspective and by emphasizing the cultural structures beneath climate change talk. In the first place, this study aims at answering the following research questions:
1. What does a systematic approach to narrative analysis in a cultural sociological perspective look like?
2. How can narrative analysis advance our understanding of climate change communication?
The first research question aims at contributing to the development of cultural sociology by providing a systematic approach to narrative analysis which acknowledges cultural sociology’s paradigms and understanding of culture. The second question focuses on the empirical interest of this study, i.e. to advance our sociological understanding of climate change communication and which role culture structures play here. Narratives are resolved into their three main spheres: structure, content, and form and even further into the single characters and settings inside and outside the narrative with the idea that each sphere contributes in its own way to the presentation of the topic.
The explorative, qualitative research design allows for including the empirical multitude of the data, i.e. the possible topics in climate change discourse. 15 narrative, problem centered interviews with climate advocates were conducted. This is how the study focuses on the perspective of the messenger. Instead of analyzing public perceptions or media articles, here the stories told by people who are – professionally or otherwise – involved in climate change activities are at the center of the analysis. Against the backdrop of an expert sphere, i.e. shared perceptions of a global phenomenon such as climate change and to avoid stereotypical national stories climate advocates from both the U.S.A. and Germany were interviewed; where appropriate, national specifics were addressed in the analysis. This leads for example to the narrative of climate change as a partisan distinction as a typical U.S. American narrative. All in all 5 main narratives could be identified: one narrative with the sole focus on the environment as a value in itself, another narrative placing climate change in the scene of humanity and solidarity, another narrative that deals with historical responsibility; the remaining two narratives are further divided into two more sub-narratives: the fight against climate change as an economic topic is seen with positive consequences on the one hand and negative consequences on the other, and lastly, climate change as political topic plays a role both as a tool for partisan distinction and as a way to reflect on the role of a nation.
The topics of these narratives are not just derived from a simple content analysis, but are a result of the interplay between structure, content and form of the narratives. The hierarchies between characters, the distribution of power among them, the setting between the characters within the narrative (hero – villain – victim) and that between those outside the narrative (storyteller – audience) constitute the topic of a story. The analysis shows how narratives exist in different settings simultaneously in one actor-group, and how the same set of characters can change their role depending on the structure of a particular narrative.
This study shows how the, sometimes highly emotional, discourse about a social phenomenon can be reduced to its core structures, thus allowing the analysis to uncover cultural meanings beneath these stories. This could provide further research, on the one hand in the realm of climate change communication it could be interesting to see how the developed analysis model can be applied to media coverage as a form of “closed” stories. On the other hand, transferring the approach of this study to other social topics could help to advance the model itself and to allow for an even more systematic and comprehensible understanding of narratives.
... Introducing a reasonable degree of fear into a message can stimulate audiences to look beyond their personal dissonance. 13,22,[28][29][30] "The higher the fear and the more concrete, effective, and doable the recommendation, the more likely it is that people will comply. But research has also shown that if you scare the hell out of people and fail to provide them with all three of those factors, then fear will produce denial." ...
... But research has also shown that if you scare the hell out of people and fail to provide them with all three of those factors, then fear will produce denial." 28 This same study by Aronson 28 suggests that audience dissonance is correlated with the timeline of the communicated fear. The shorter the timeline, the less audience dissonance occurs. ...
Much of effective disaster risk communications practice is based on the equitable distribution of crisis messaging to the target population. Priority is given, for example, to getting an evacuation message to the most people possible using a language and medium appropriate to that audience. Cognitive dissonance (CD) studies, however, show that well-intentioned disaster management messaging not only can produce an undesirable public reaction, but can also solidify public sentiment to resist or deny that very message. This focused literature review of a modest-sized body of research on the effects of cognitive dissonance on disaster management risk communications will produce two results. First, the research will demonstrate that a basic understanding of CD could help disaster communicators craft more effective messaging and, second, it will introduce a preliminary cognitive dissonance index (CDI) that can be easily plugged into existing crisis communication models. This “upgrade” to existing risk communication frameworks represents an efficient method to close the theory to practice loop and begin to account for the power of CD in our national and international disaster communications.
... Narratives of rising sea level and disappearing land have the potential to induce fear of loss of property, community, and identity among the residents and business owners around the Chesapeake. When experimental participants are confronted with a fear-evoking cognition that requires a difficult solution like a behavior change, they are more likely to engage in denial than those presented with a solution that appears more reasonable to achieve (Aronson, 2008). This conforms to research showing that people are more likely to engage in disaster mitigation behaviors if they believe they have the Frontiers in Climate 08 frontiersin.org ...
Ecomyopia is the tendency to ignore important environmental information that challenges structures of power and place-based identities. Predictions of relative sea-level rise on the Eastern Shore of Maryland include catastrophic land loss over the next 50 years but have not promoted serious discussion about managed retreat. We review literature emerging from Mary Douglas’ theory of the cultural construction of environmental risk and psychological theories of cognitive dissonance and social identity to examine why many residents of the Chesapeake Bay resist relocation in the face of rising sea level. We use this theoretical synthesis to analyze 63 in-depth interviews conducted on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay to examine how social institutions and widely shared narratives of heritage and identity frame discussion of sea-level rise. Technological solutions to shoreline erosion dominate the discourse as a means of avoiding cognitive dissonance caused by relocation’s existential threat to place-based identity. As predicted by the Cultural Theory of Risk, group identities shape risk perceptions associated with rising sea level and climate change. Discourse in our case study illustrates how confirmation bias is a social process and why those who challenge the status quo are marginalized as environmental information is transformed into preferred solutions. We generalize from this case study to explain how ecomyopia can preclude managed retreat as a rational strategy in regions threatened by anthropogenic climate change and rising sea levels.
... Dining in/out pleasures through great food and helps develop social relationships (Khalek et al., 2019). Further, extroverted individuals gain pleasure from food (Depue & Collins, 1999) and the delivery mechanism (Ling et al., 2024), confirming the positive association between extraversion and dining out (Aronson, 2008). Hence, extraverts will approach the dining in/out services and not avoid these services. ...
... Findings showed that as individuals' neuroticism decreased, their commitment to staying at home and adhering to self-isolation increased. Similar to our findings, peek et al., and Aronson et al. indicated that people with neurotic fears and anxieties have a strong tendency to use the defense mechanism of denial and use this mechanism to overcome their inner anxiety and fear and do more risky actions (26,27). In addition, high neuroticism leads to undesirable coping behaviors (28). ...
Background & Aim: Results of previous studies on the role of personality traits and resilience in explaining health-oriented behaviors such as social/physical distance and self-isolation were inconsistent. The present study was conducted to determine the role of the five big personality traits and resilience in adherence to self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods & Materials: A prospective longitudinal cohort study tracked 112 healthcare providers who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Using GPS data from their cell phones, researchers assessed self-isolation adherence over 14 days. Participants completed NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) questionnaires. Results: Sixty-one (58.7%) of the subjects violated their self-isolation, and 43 (41.3%) did not violate it during the 14 days after PCR positivity for COVID-19. After adjustment for potential confounders, results showed that only two of the five big personality traits included, conscientiousness (AOR=1.37; 95%CI: 1.15–1.63) and neuroticism (AOR=0.85; 95%CI: 0.74–0.98), were significantly related to the self-isolation adherence. This means a one-unit increase in conscientiousness is associated with 37% higher odds of self-isolation adherence, while a one-unit increase in neuroticism reduces self-isolation adherence by 15%. Resilience was the main predictor for self-isolation adherence in which a one-unit increase in resilience score, the odds of adherence to self-isolation significantly increased by 18% (AOR=1.18, 95%CI: 1.07–1.30) (P<0.001). Conclusion: The study suggests that fostering conscientiousness and resilience among individuals may enhance self-isolation commitment during pandemics. Further research is needed to explore the influence of agreeableness, extraversion, and openness to experience on self-isolation adherence.
... In a sense, our trajectory toward self-destruction stems from an incredible capacity for self-delusion and denial (see Aronson, 2008). All too often, humans have dismissed calls for planning for pandemics as hysteria and rejected climate change and population science that predicted the emergence of pandemics as 'fear mongering' (Murphy, 2019). ...
... In a sense, our trajectory toward self-destruction stems from an incredible capacity for self-delusion and denial (see Aronson, 2008). All too often, humans have dismissed calls for planning for pandemics as hysteria and rejected climate change and population science that predicted the emergence of pandemics as 'fear mongering' (Murphy, 2019). ...
... When disasters strike, the government is often slower to act because of differences in trust in the government, which affects the efficiency of its response to disasters [9]. When the government makes policies to deal with disasters, they cause great panic and confusion, which is not beneficial for people's survival and the building of trust and cooperation between people [10]. Potential problems in the government system lead to a lack of coordination and efficiency, resulting in time-consuming implementation of solutions and slowing down the process of social recovery [11]. ...
Facing the emergence of more world issues, preparing for the arrival of post-apocalypse becomes necessary. Among various problems people might face, lack of food sources is the most critical one. This paper examines how relatively sensitive and responsive private sector businesses can lead and collaborate with other segments of society to build a sustainable long-term food production and distribution system when the post-apocalypse comes. This 2-period system introduces the role of the Chamber of Commerce, and describes the progress of redistribution of resources and cooperation between companies. The feasibility of the system is assessed from different perspectives with the prediction and analysis of possible problems. The profit motives of companies taking part in the system are also studied.
... H3. Neuroticism positively associates with introjected motivation. Aronson (2008) suggested that individuals with neurotic personality type and high anxiety may engage in substance abuse or unsafe sexual practices because their anxiety levels above a certain threshold lead them to be indifferent to the risks of such behaviours. We believe that Aronson's study (2008) indicates that highly neurotic individuals may exhibit amotivation. ...
COVID-19 has negatively affected the travel and tourism industry and may continue to do so in the future. Therefore, hospitality businesses need to pay attention to consumer reactions, concerns, and motives for travelling in this era. This study leverages the stimulus-organism-behaviour-consequence (SOBC) model to examine psychological factors that influence Japanese travellers' intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel by analysing data from 790 respondents. The findings of the study reveal that extraversion positively associates with introjected motivation and negatively with amotivation. Neuroticism personality type positively associates with amotivation and negatively associates with introjected motivation. Introjected motivation positively associates with perception of safe travel during COVID-19, whereas amotivation has a non-significant association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19. Perception of safe travel positively associates with intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. Finally, intention to travel has no effect on willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. These findings provide valuable theoretical and managerial implications.
... Beyond this tipping point, when issue salience elevated, PTSD can also increase from moderate to high. This can be explained by the fact that issue salience may trigger an individual's fear denial mechanism (Aronson, 2008) and may serve as an anesthetic in that individuals may be too shocked to accept the WPV-related issue. Then, beyond the tipping point, as individuals learned more about the details of the murderer's inhumanity in the event, they tended to exhibit more PTSD symptoms. ...
Although there have been numerous studies on mental wellbeing impairment or other negative consequences of Workplace Violence (WPV) against healthcare professionals, however, the effects of WPV are not limited to those who experience WPV in person, but those who exposed to WPV information indirectly. In the aftermath of “death of Dr. Yang Wen,” a cross-sectional study was conducted to explore the psychological status of healthcare professionals. A total of 965 healthcare professionals from 32 provinces in China participated in our research. The prevalence rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression, anxiety among healthcare professional in the current study were 25.60, 46.01, and 27.88%, respectively. Moreover, our research suggested that the awareness of WPV-incident had a significant association with PTSD symptoms. In addition, risk perception was shown to mediate the effect of WPV awareness on PTSD symptoms. Furthermore, the present research also found a U-shaped relationship between issue salience and PTSD symptoms, and the relationship between issue salience and anxiety, indicating that higher awareness of WPV issue was negatively related to mental health status (including PTSD and anxiety) but only to the points at which there were no additional effects of more issue salience. This study highlighted that more protective measures for healthcare professionals need to be implemented in response to potential WPV events. More importantly, risk perception was found to mediate the effect of WPV issue salience on PTSD symptoms, it is critical to reduce the mental health burden through intervening in risk perception.
... Even in the case of different results, it would not be surprising and difficult to explain that when coping with a pandemic disease, persons who are prone to neuroticism may exhibit inconsistency in their behavior, which may be related to their level of neuroticism. Persons who express higher levels of fear and anxiety, for example, prefer to use denial as a psychological defense strategy to alleviate their fears; this implies that they participate in risky activities to feel psychologically safe [117][118][119]. This practically means that they would dare to travel even though it is risky. ...
The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has enormous effects on peoples’ lives and on the global economy. The outbreak and effects of COVID-19 have resulted in fears, concerns, and anxiety among people all around the world. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the fear of COVID-19, travel anxiety, and travel intention among residents in Serbia. In addition to the above, the aim of the study was to examine the impact of personality traits on the fear of COVID-19, travel anxiety, and travel intentions. To enhance the understanding of the relationship between the mentioned variables, this study proposes a research model based on the use of measurement scales from the existing studies to develop the questionnaire. The standard paper-and-pen survey was used for data collection from the respondents from Serbia. The total sample include 987 respondents. It was determined that Travel intention was negatively influenced by Neuroticism and Conscientiousness, but positively by Extroversion and Openness. The supposed Agreeableness did not have a significant effect on Travel intention. This study contributes to understanding the respondents’ behavior during pandemic of COVID-19, and their responses to the crisis according to their personality traits might have practical implications in the travel sector.
... Previous research has demonstrated that fear, anxiety and the threat of death associated with disaster often lead to irrational consumer behaviour (Aronson, 2008). For instance, consumers may indulge in impulsive and/or compulsive buying that offers short-term gratification in a time of crisis (Ruvio et al., 2014) as they struggle to restore stability and equilibrium. ...
The COVID‐19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in consumers’ daily lives. Regulations imposing social distancing, quarantine, and full‐scale lockdowns have heightened the risks amongst vulnerable consumer groups such as the elderly and socially or financially disadvantaged. However, these restrictions have also caused transitory vulnerability in many people who are not considered vulnerable under normal circumstances. Digital technology has become central to almost every aspect of consumers’ lives in response to restriction measures and in coping with pandemic‐induced stress and anxiety. Technology‐mediated consumption as a coping strategy amidst a crisis is an under‐researched topic within the marketing literature. This paper discusses four paradoxes of technology central to understanding the nexus between technology consumption and consumer vulnerability. We propose a comprehensive research agenda and call for future research that could overcome the limitations of traditional research designs. Our work serves as a springboard for future scholarship and opens doors for other researchers to continue exploring this critical research area.
... In social psychology more generally, the study of attitude-behavior gaps can be traced back even further, to Lapiere (1934). Elsewhere, psychologists have warned against seeing emotions as simple levers of behavior (Chapman et al 2017) or have explained why 'fear appeals' can be counterproductive and lead to apathy or denial instead of action (Witte 1992, Witte and Allen 2000, Aronson 2008). ...
By some counts, up to 98% of environmental news stories are negative in nature. Implicit in this number is the conventional wisdom among many communicators that increasing people's understanding, awareness, concern or even fear of climate change are necessary precursors for action and behavior change. In this article we review scientific theories of mind and brain that explain why this conventional view is flawed. In real life, the relationship between beliefs and behavior often goes in the opposite direction: our actions change our beliefs, awareness and concerns through a process of self-justification and self-persuasion. As one action leads to another, this process of self-persuasion can go hand in hand with a deepening engagement and the development of agency - knowing how to act. One important source of agency is learning from the actions of others. We therefore propose an approach to climate communication and storytelling that builds people's agency for climate action by providing a wide variety of stories of people taking positive action on climate change. Applied at scale, this will shift the conceptualization of climate change from 'issue-based' to 'action-based'. It will also expand the current dominant meanings of 'climate action' (i.e. 'consumer action' and 'activism') to incorporate all relevant practices people engage in as members of a community, as professionals and as citizens. We close by proposing a systematic approach to get more reference material for action-based stories from science, technology and society to the communities of storytellers - learning from health communication and technologies developed for COVID-19.
... In other words, they practice risky behaviors, such as substance/medication use disorders or risky sexual practices, for feeling secure psychologically. 10 Moreover, it has been proved that neuroticism can be associated with the immune system in three manners: 1) a "main effects model" wherein personality yields tonic discrepancies in the immune system; 2) a "predisposition model" wherein effects of stressors on the immune system are dependent on personality; 3) a "common cause model" wherein immune function and personality are related attributable to a common determinant (e.g., gene linkage). Furthermore, the impact of neuroticism on psychosocial mediators may have adverse effects on the immune system. ...
... The inconsistency in the behavior of people prone to neuroticism when dealing with a pandemic disease may be associated with their level of neuroticism. For example, individuals with high levels of fear and anxiety tend to adopt denial as a psychological defense mechanism to mitigate their fears; this means that they practice risky behaviors to feel psychologically secure (Aronson 2008;Florian and Mikulincer 1997;Peek et al. 2008). ...
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, people in Qatar—similar to most countries globally—were instructed by health authorities to adopt protective behaviors to avoid infection. One of these behaviors is social distancing, which is influenced by diverse variables. Using data from an online survey with 405 responses, this study performed multiple regression analysis to explore effects of personality, risk perception, and personal hygiene practices on social distancing among residents of Qatar. The results showed that 87.3% of participants reported that they preferred to stay at home and not go outside unless necessary, 60.3% said that they maintain an adequate distance when communicating with others, 68.6% reported that they do not allow relatives and friends to visit them at home, 73.5% believed that COVID-19 is a dangerous disease, and 95.8% reported that they embrace personal hygiene practices and washing hands. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis showed that conscientiousness, neuroticism, risk perception, and personal hygiene practices predicted social distancing, with moderate effect sizes. Gender differences were also found in social distancing practices, indicating that women reported higher engagement in social distancing practices than men. These results highlighted the importance of individual differences in reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic and provide important information about the predictors of social distancing practices.
... The inconsistency in the behavior of people prone to neuroticism when dealing with a pandemic disease may be associated with their level of neuroticism. For example, individuals with high levels of fear and anxiety tend to adopt denial as a psychological defense mechanism to mitigate their fears; this means that they practice risky behaviors to feel psychologically secure (Florian & Mikulincer, 1997;Aronson, 2008;Peek, Sayad, & Markwardt, 2008). ...
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, people were instructed by health authorities to adopt protective behaviors to avoid infection. One of these behaviors is social distancing, which is influenced by diverse variables. Using data from an online survey with 405 responses, this study performed a multiple regression analysis to explore the effects of personality, risk perception, and personal hygiene practices on social distancing among residents of Qatar. The results showed that conscientiousness, neuroticism, risk perception, and personal hygiene practices predicted social distancing with a moderate effect size. Gender differences were also found in social distancing practices that women reported higher in social distancing practices than men. These results highlighted the importance of these factors in predicting individuals’ protective behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
... The inconsistency in the behavior of people prone to neuroticism when dealing with a pandemic disease may be associated with their level of neuroticism. For example, individuals with high levels of fear and anxiety tend to adopt denial as a psychological defense mechanism to mitigate their fears; this means that they practice risky behaviors to feel psychologically secure (Aronson 2008;Florian and Mikulincer 1997;Peek et al. 2008). ...
In the time of respiratory pandemic diseases such as COVID-19, people usually adopt protective behaviors to avoid the infection. One of these behaviors is social distancing which might be predicted by a variety of variables. Using an online survey of 405 responses, a multiple regression analysis was carried out to explore the predictors of social distancing among locals and Arab residents in Qatar. The results showed that conscientiousness, neuroticism, risk perception, and personal hygiene work as predictors of the social distances with moderate effect size. Gender differences were found in social distancing practices. These results shed light on the importance of these factors to predict the human’s protective behaviors to COVID-19
Disasters can move quickly. Effective communication is a critical resource that can significantly enhance public safety. A mass notification system (MNS) uses text messaging to inform constituents of crisis, provide recommendations, connect to resources, and has the advantage of speed. Limited research has been conducted on the variables that influence the effectiveness, utilization, and perceptions of MNS. The extant study employs a multi-method approach to advance the scholarly knowledge on MNS. All emergency managers in a state were surveyed on issues of MNS enrollment, utilization, and brand. A subgroup of emergency managers were then interviewed to provide depth to the survey findings. Key findings indicate wide variability in MNS usage, little relationship between population size and enrollment, and a high perceived importance of MNS as a communication modality. Policy implications and recommendations are offered.
This research shows that consumers who encounter products through low chance events rather than predictable events develop greater liking for those products. A series of six studies demonstrate that consumers search for meaning when these unexpected events occur, leading to stronger self–product connection and more positive product evaluations. Consistent with our conceptualization, this effect is moderated by factors that influence perceptions of meaning and self–product connection. Specifically, the effect is attenuated when consumers encounter products that have strong inherent meaning (self-consistent product), and when they believe that meaning is not important or that life's random events do not need to make sense. This study is the first to reveal the hidden factors that lead people to associate products encountered in low chance events with the self. The current work provides potentially valuable insights as to how situational factors can alter self–product connection, and consequently influence consumers' experiences when they encounter products.
Climate change is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a natural one. This book is about those cultural patterns that surround our perception of the environmental crisis and which are embodied in the narratives told by climate change advocates. It investigates the themes and motifs in those narratives through the use of narrative theory and cultural sociology.
Developing a framework for cultural narrative analysis, Climate Change and Storytelling draws on qualitative interviews with stakeholders, activists and politicians in the USA and Germany to identify motifs and the relationships between heroes, villains and victims, as told by the messengers of the narrative.
This book will provide academics and practitioners with insights into the structure of climate change communication among climate advocates and the cultural fabric that informs it.
To understand the nature of the political and public debate about climate change, we need to understand the narrative structures that produce this discourse. Narratives, occurring in media, in public discourse, political agenda or even scientific debate, are vehicles for complex phenomena, such as climate change. The science behind this, the intricate interrelations and differences between daily weather occurrences and climate, between various factors – from natural causes to a changing climate to anthropogenic climate change – and the sheer amount of voices in this debate, make climate change a hard topic to sell. Climate change policies are complicated and in need to factor in a large amount of different aspects. As “story-telling animals”, we perceive facts, numbers and urgent appeals that surround climate change inherently as a story.
Climate change is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a natural one. This book is about those cultural patterns that surround our perception of the environmental crisis and which are embodied in the narratives told by climate change advocates. It investigates the themes and motifs in those narratives through the use of narrative theory and provides a framework for narrative analysis from a cultural perspective.
Developing a framework for cultural narrative analysis, Climate Change and Storytelling draws on qualitative interviews with stakeholders, activists and politicians in the USA and Germany to identify motifs and the relationships between heroes, villains and victims, as told by the messengers of the narrative.
This book will provide academics and practitioners with insights into the structure of climate change communication among climate advocates and the cultural fabric that informs it.
This chapter discusses different approaches in the social sciences dealing with narratives and introduces the reader to the narrative terminology. It will debate the social function of narratives and focus especially on narrative research in the realm of environmental problems to provide a basis for the ensuing analysis and findings. Subsequently, this chapter elaborates on the theoretical foundations that underlie the narrative analysis, drawing on cultural sociology and narrative theory. It suggests an analytical scheme to investigate cultural narratives with the help of narrative and literary theory.
This chapter provides an overview of selected aspects of social sciences’ studies on the phenomenon of climate change. In particular, this chapter discusses studies in the realm of risk perception and risk communication; it pays specific attention to insight from discourse analysis and findings in media research, such as the norm of balanced reporting. Scholarship of public understanding of science and science communication provides additional information on how societies perceive the risk of climate change. With this in mind, the chapter closes with a closer look at cultural theory and cultural study approaches to the topic before introducing the cultural sociological perspective as the theoretical basis for the following empirical analysis.
This chapter presents the interpretation and analysis of empirical findings from qualitative data. Interviews were conducted with German and US-American climate advocates, i.e. people who are committed – professionally or as volunteers – to combat climate change and to get others engaged in the cause. Different narratives are identified and analyzed according to their structure and content, resulting in five main narratives derived from the empirical data. Here, economic concerns play a role, as well as environmental concerns and the way in which interviewees perceive the role of their government and country. Preserving nature and global solidarity with those who are suffering the impacts of climate change are put forward as values on their own, which justify getting involved in the fight against climate change.
"Remember when an unattended package was just that, an unattended package? Remember when the airport was a place that evoked magical possibilities, not the anxiety of a full-body scan? In the post-9/11 world, we have become focused on heightened security measures, but do you feel safer? Are you safer?. Against Security explains how our anxieties about public safety have translated into command-and-control procedures that annoy, intimidate, and are often counterproductive. Taking readers through varied ambiguously dangerous sites, the prominent urbanist and leading sociologist of the everyday, Harvey Molotch, argues that we can use our existing social relationships to make life safer and more humane. He begins by addressing the misguided strategy of eliminating public restrooms, which deprives us all of a basic resource and denies human dignity to those with no place else to go. Subway security instills fear through programs like "See Something, Say Something" and intrusive searches that have yielded nothing of value. At the airport, the security gate causes crowding and confusion, exhausting the valuable focus of TSA staff. Finally, Molotch shows how defensive sentiments have translated into the vacuous Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site and massive error in New Orleans, both before and after Hurricane Katrina. Throughout, Molotch offers thoughtful ways of maintaining security that are not only strategic but improve the quality of life for everyone.
This experiment applied a new twist on cognitive dissonance theory to the problem of AIDS prevention among sexually active young adults. Dissonance was created after a proattitudinal advocacy by inducing hypocrisy-having subjects publicly advocate the importance of safe sex and then systematically making the subjects mindful of their own past failures to use condoms. It was predicted that the induction of hypocrisy would motivate subjects to reduce dissonance by purchasing condoms at the completion of the experiment. The results showed that more subjects in the hypocrisy condition bought condoms and also bought more condoms, on average, than subjects in the control conditions. The implications of the hypocrisy procedure for AIDS prevention programs and for current views of dissonance theory are discussed.
Four groups of high school students (total N = 441) were each exposed to one of the following films: A High-Threat, Medium-Threat, or Low-Threat appeal about impaired driving; or an irrelevant Control film. The threatening films evoked varying degrees of general upset (anxiety, depression, loss of pleasure, and disgust) rather than just fear. All three experimental groups outscored control subjects on an immediate posttest measure of knowledge about drinking and driving; however, this advantage dissipated by the delayed posttest, six months later. The high- and low-threat films actually evoked more permissive attitudes to impaired driving than the control film did on the immediate posttest; however, no attitudinal differences among treatments appeared on the delayed posttest. The experimental films also failed to affect self-reports of impaired-driving frequency over the six months between the two posttests. Possible reasons were suggested for the evident ineffectiveness of the threat appeals, and possible issues for further investigation were identified.
The effects of fear appeals on persuasion were investigated in a factorial experiment that was designed to test a combined model of protection motivation theory and self-efficacy theory. As predicted, the probability of a threat's occurrence and the effectiveness of a coping response both had positive main effects on intentions to adopt a recommended preventive health behavior. More importantly, the findings provided support for self-efficacy expectancy as a fourth component of protection motivation theory: Self-efficacy had a direct influence on intentions and interacted with two other variables of protection motivation theory. The interaction effect was interpreted in terms of two new decision-making strategies that people use when confronted with a fear appeal: a precaution strategy and a hyperdefensiveness strategy. In addition, the results replicated previous findings on the relationship between self-efficacy expectancy and outcome expectancy. A model incorporating protection motivation theory and self-efficacy theory is presented as a possible general model of attitude change.
This meta-analysis of studies of the persuasive impact of fear appeals evaluated the contribution of our stage model of the processing of fear-arousing communications relative to other fear appeal theories. In contrast to other theories, our stage model (a) specifies the cognitive processes underlying persuasion through fear-arousing communications, (b) proposes that threat-induced defensive processing does not interfere with the effectiveness of fear-arousing communications but actually contributes to it, and (c) predicts that vulnerability and severity manipulations have differential effects on measures of attitude as compared with intention and behavior. To evaluate these predictions, the authors expanded on previous meta-analyses by assessing the independent as well as joint effects of vulnerability to and severity of a risk, both on information processing and on measures of persuasion (attitude, intention, behavior). Overall, findings were consistent with the stage model. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Feelings of hypocrisy were induced in college students to increase condom use. Hypocrisy was created by making subjects mindful of their past failure to use condoms and then having them persuade others about the importance of condoms for AIDS prevention. The induction of hypocrisy decreased denial and led to greater intent to improve condom use relative to the control conditions. The implications of these findings for AIDS prevention are discussed.
The effect of fear arousal on attitude toward participating in early detection activities [i.e. breast self-examination (BSE)] was studied from an information-processing perspective. It was hypothesized that fear arousal motivates respondents to more argument-based processing of fear-relevant persuasive information. Respondents first read information about breast cancer in which fear was manipulated. After measuring fear arousal, respondents read a persuasive message about performing BSE. Analyses with reported fear, but not manipulated fear, found support for the hypothesis. Respondents who reported mild fear of breast cancer based their attitude toward BSE more on the arguments provided than respondents who reported low fear of breast cancer. This finding suggests that the use of fear arousal may be an efficient tool in health education practice. However, alternative interpretations are provided, in addition to the suggestion to be careful with using fear arousal in health education messages.
Deals with the effects of (a) level of fear and (b) specific plans for action vs. general recommendations on attitudes toward tetanus inoculations and actually getting tetanus shots. The arousal of fear resulted in more favorable attitudes toward inoculation and the expression of stronger intentions to get shots. However, actually getting shots occurred significantly more often for Ss receiving a specific plan for action. Although action was unaffected by fear level some level of arousal was necessary for action to occur. A specific plan was not sufficient for action to appear. Although the 2 dependent measures were affected by different independent variables, those people getting shots were also more favorable toward doing so. The results are compared with other studies on fear arousal and actions, and speculations were presented on the role of specific action plans in the translation of attitudes into actions. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We discuss the cognitive and the psy- chophysical determinants of choice in risky and risk- less contexts. The psychophysics of value induce risk aversion in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses. The psychophysics of chance induce overweighting of sure things and of improbable events, relative to events of moderate probability. De- cision problems can be described or framed in multiple ways that give rise to different preferences, contrary to the invariance criterion of rational choice. The pro- cess of mental accounting, in which people organize the outcomes of transactions, explains some anomalies of consumer behavior. In particular, the acceptability of an option can depend on whether a negative outcome is evaluated as a cost or as an uncompensated loss. The relation between decision values and experience values is discussed. Making decisions is like speaking prose—people do it all the time, knowingly or unknowingly. It is hardly surprising, then, that the topic of decision making is shared by many disciplines, from mathematics and statistics, through economics and political science, to sociology and psychology. The study of decisions ad- dresses both normative and descriptive questions. The normative analysis is concerned with the nature of rationality and the logic of decision making. The de- scriptive analysis, in contrast, is concerned with peo- ple's beliefs and preferences as they are, not as they should be. The tension between normative and de- scriptive considerations characterizes much of the study of judgment and choice. Analyses of decision making commonly distin- guish risky and riskless choices. The paradigmatic example of decision under risk is the acceptability of a gamble that yields monetary outcomes with specified probabilities. A typical riskless decision concerns the acceptability of a transaction in which a good or a service is exchanged for money or labor. In the first part of this article we present an analysis of the cog- nitive and psychophysical factors that determine the value of risky prospects. In the second part we extend this analysis to transactions and trades. Risky Choice Risky choices, such as whether or not to take an umbrella and whether or not to go to war, are made without advance knowledge of their consequences. Because the consequences of such actions depend on uncertain events such as the weather or the opponent's resolve, the choice of an act may be construed as the acceptance of a gamble that can yield various out- comes with different probabilities. It is therefore nat- ural that the study of decision making under risk has focused on choices between simple gambles with monetary outcomes and specified probabilities, in the hope that these simple problems will reveal basic at- titudes toward risk and value. We shall sketch an approach to risky choice that
This study explored reactions to an impending disaster whose occurrence is highly likely but whose timing is unknown. Fifty-one students who lived in suites rated "good" seismically, and 50 students who lived in dormitories rated "very poor" seismically were canvassed concerning their perceptions and coping strategies with respect to the impending California earthquake. Results indicated that respondents in the very poor structures were significantly more likely to deny the seriousness of the situation and to doubt the experts' predictions than were respondents in the good suites. Both groups showed ignorance of basic earthquake safety information and had taken no measures to prepare for an earthquake.
In contrast with traditional, direct techniques of persuasion (advertising, political rhetoric, etc.), self-persuasion is indirect and entails placing people in situations where they are motivated to persuade themselves to change their own attitudes or behavior. We find that where important attitudes, behavior, or lifestyle changes are concerned, self-persuasion strategies produce more powerful and more long-lasting effects than do direct techniques of persuasion. This is primarily due to the fact that in direct persuasion, members of an audience are constantly aware of the fact that someone is trying (or has tried) to influence them. In a self-persuasion situation, people are convinced that the motivation for change comes from within. In the present address, the author reviews a range of his research on self-persuasion and underscores its relevance to current societal problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In a field experiment on water conservation, we aroused dissonance in patrons of the campus recreation facility by making them feel hypocritical about their showering habits. Using a 2 × 2 factorial design, we manipulated subjects “‘mindfulness” that they had sometimes wasted water while showering, and then varied whether they made a “public commitment” urging other people to take shorter showers. The “hypocrisy” condition-in which subjects made the public commitment after being reminded of their past behavior-was expected to be dissonance-arousing, thereby motivating subjects to increase their efforts to conserve water. The results were consistent with this reasoning. Compared to controls, subjects in the hypocrisy condition took significantly shorter showers. Subjects who were merely reminded that they had wasted water, or who only made the public commitment, did not take shorter showers than control subjects. The findings have implications for using cognitive dissonance as means of changing behavior in applied settings, especially those in which people already support the desired goal, but their behavior is not consistent with those beliefs.
The study of heuristics and biases in judgement has been criticized in several publications by G. Gigerenzer, who argues that "biases are not biases" and "heuristics are meant to explain what does not exist" (1991, p. 102). The article responds to Gigerenzer's critique and shows that it misrepresents the authors' theoretical position and ignores critical evidence. Contrary to Gigerenzer's central empirical claim, judgments of frequency--not only subjective probabilities--are susceptible to large and systematic biases. A postscript responds to Gigerenzer's (1996) reply.