Risk Assessment and Negative Affect: Examining Compliance Gaining in the Context of Major Crises and Disasters

Sample

While a substantive body of research has explored compliance gaining processes related to environmental risks, the threats posed by impending environmental crises and natural disasters likely constitute a unique psychological state in which information seeking is paramount, in order to establish order in an otherwise unpredictable circumstance (Brashers, Neidig, Haas, Dobbs, Cardillo, & Russell, 2000). Recently, Sandman (1998) and colleagues have offered a conceptual model, arguing that risk awareness and affect exist along separate and often orthogonal dimensions. This model, labeled Risk = Hazard + Outrage, argues that risk messages must not only meet the public’s need for information, but must also induce enough fear to motivate action, but not enough fear to produce antisocial responses. For instance, in the case of an impending hurricane, emergency managers would want to alarm those in its path enough to motivate evacuation, but no to create so much fear that they would give up and remain in place. More recent research has developed a measurement model for examining these responses among at-risk audiences, and has applied this measurement system in the field to evaluate the ways in which risk perception and negative affect vary from crisis to crisis and audience to audience. The current chapter synthesizes these findings, and offers suggestions for emergency management practitioners and crisis responders who may find themselves in the position of having to persuade diverse audiences to take protective action.