Large Risks with Low Probabilities: Perceptions and willingness to take preventive measures against flooding

Tadeusz Tyszka and Piotr Zielonka

Description

This volume contains studies of one particular category of risky situations, namely, those involving highly negative consequences with low probabilities. Situations of this type involve both natural and man-made disasters (e.g. floods, technological hazards, economic crises, epidemics, etc.). Such risks are characterized by two features: (1) they occur relatively rarely (the probability of their occurrence is very low) and (2) they have extremely negative consequences (they are catastrophic). Such events generally cannot be prevented, but one can both try to anticipate them and undertake actions aimed at ameliorating their negative consequences. Consequently, the first part of the book is devoted to risk perception issues. It includes studies devoted to the following questions which arise when people have to deal with probabilities, and small probabilities in particular: How can probabilistic information be communicated effectively? What is the impact of emotions on perceptions of, and reactions to, probabilistic information? Other relevant issues are also discussed. The second part of the book is devoted to protection and insurance against risk. Thus, it includes studies answering the following questions: What determines a person's willingness to take preventive actions in areas susceptible to severe flooding? How do people form their own risk estimates?Research presented in the book extends our knowledge of human behavior in situations characterized by large risks and low probabilities, leading to better comprehension of the functioning of cognitive and affective processes in perception and decision making in situations where uncertainty and risk are accompanied by highly negative consequences.

Sujets

• Sciences et techniques
• Environmental management
• Environmental science
• Natural disaster

Informations

• Publié par: IWA Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780408606
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

LARGERISKS WITH LOW PROBABILITIES Perceptions and willingness to take preventive measures against flooding

Edited by Tadeusz Tyszka and Piotr Zielonka

Large Risks with Low Probabilities

Large Risks with Low Probabilities Perceptions and Willingness to Take Preventive Measures Against Flooding

Edited by Tadeusz Tyszka and Piotr Zielonka

Published by

First published 2017 © 2017 IWA Publishing

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Disclaimer The information provided and the opinions given in this publication are not necessarily those of IWA and should not be acted upon without independent consideration and professional advice. IWA and the Editors and Author will not accept responsibility for any loss or damage suffered by any person acting or refraining from acting upon any material contained in this publication.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781780408590 (Paperback) ISBN 9781780408606 (eBook)

Cover image: Gilbert Gulben Cartoon illustrations: Szczepan Sadurski

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi About the Editors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv

Chapter 1 Psychological reactions to environmental hazards. . . . . . . 1 Tadeusz Tyszka and Piotr Zielonka 1.1 Why Study Psychological Reactions to Environmental Hazards? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Environmental Cues, Social Cues, Warnings, and Predecisional Information Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 Perception of Environmental Threats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.1 The difference between expert and lay conceptions of risk. . 7 1.3.2 Risk and emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.3.3 Problems with the perception of probabilities . . . . . . . . . 10 1.4 DecisionMaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.4.1 Determinants of protective actions and insurance decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 2 Are people interested in probabilities of natural disasters?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Julija Michailova, Tadeusz Tyszka and Katarzyna Gawryluk 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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2.2.1 Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.2.2 Decision scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.2.3 Experimental procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.3.1 Data classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.3.2 Hypothesis testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter 3 Overweighting versus underweighting of small probabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Katarzyna Idzikowska, Rafał Muda, Sabina Kołodziej and Piotr Zielonka 3.1 Underweighting and Overweighting of Small Probabilities . . . . . 41 3.2 When do People Tend to Overweight Small Probabilities? . . . . . 44 3.3 When do People Underweight Small Probabilities? . . . . . . . . . . 46 3.4 ‘Decisions from Description’ versus ‘Decisions from Experience’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 3.5 Explanations of the DescriptionExperience Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.5.1 Sampling bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.5.2 Switching behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.5.3 The recency effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.5.4 The merepresentation effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.6 The Probability Weighting Function: How to Communicate Probabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Chapter 4 The communication of probabilistic information. . . . . . . . 59 Sabina Kołodziej, Katarzyna Idzikowska and Elton George McGoun 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4.2 Probability Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4.2.1 Numerical probability formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.2.2 Graphical probability formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4.2.3 Verbal probability information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

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4.3 Displaying Probability Information in a Sequential Format: An Empirical Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 4.4 Experiments 1 and 2: Comparing a Sequential Display Format with Other Probability Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.4.1 The research goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.4.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.4.3 Experiment 1 – results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4.4.4 Experiment 2 – results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 4.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Chapter 5 The role of emotions in forming judgements about risks. . . 81 Julija Michailova and Anna Macko 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1.1 Risk perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5.1.2 Hazards and emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 5.1.3 The study’s aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 5.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.2.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 5.2.2 Materials and procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 5.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.3.1 The structure of emotional reactions and risk judgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 5.3.2 Mediation analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 5.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 6 What determines willingness to take preventive actions in areas experiencing severe flooding?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Tadeusz Tyszka and Roman Konieczny 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 6.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 6.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 6.3.1 How did inhabitants of the areas exposed to flood hazards perceive the threat? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 6.3.2 Determinants of willingness to take preventive actions against flood hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

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6.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 7 Cognitive and emotional factors influencing the propensity to insure oneself against disaster. . . . . . . . . . 119 Agata Sobkow, Jakub Traczyk, Anna Polec and Tadeusz Tyszka 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 7.1.1 Cognitive factors influencing the propensity to insure oneself against disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 7.1.2 Emotional factors influencing the propensity to insure oneself against disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 7.1.3 The role of personal experience in the propensity to insure oneself against disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 7.1.4 Overview of the present study and hypotheses . . . . . . 124 7.2 Experiment 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 7.2.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 7.2.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 7.2.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 7.3 Experiment 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 7.3.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 7.3.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 7.3.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 7.4 Experiment 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.4.1 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.4.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 7.4.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 7.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Chapter 8 Peer effects in catastrophic risk insurance takeup. . . . . 141 Michał Krawczyk, Stefan T. Trautmann and Gijs van de Kuilen 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 8.2 Peer Effects: Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 8.3 Peer Effects: Empirical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 8.4 Experimental Study: Design and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

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8.4.1 General setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 8.4.2 Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 8.4.3 Lab details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 8.4.4 Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 8.5 Experimental Study: Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 8.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Chapter 9 The illusion of safety: its existence, forms and remedies. . 157 Marcin Malawski and Katarzyna Gawryluk 9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 9.2 Study 1: The Illusion of Safety in the Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 9.2.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 9.2.2 Procedure, scenarios and questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 9.2.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 9.3 Study 2: The Illusion of Safety in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 9.3.1 The participant sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 9.3.2 Method and questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 9.3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 9.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Chapter 10 Education and information as a basis for flood risk management – practical issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Roman Konieczny, Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz, Małgorzata Siudak, Jarosław Działek and Wojciech Biernacki 10.1 Why Flood Education? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 10.2 Actors in the Flood Risk Education and Communication Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 10.2.1 Broadcasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 10.2.2 Communication intermediaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 10.2.3 Receivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 10.3 Objectives of FloodRelated Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 10.4 Content of FloodRelated Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 10.4.1 Main characteristics of flood hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 10.4.2 Knowledge of local causes of floods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 10.4.3 Flood risk reduction measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186