SAFETYLIT WEEKLY UPDATE

We compile citations and summaries of about 400 new articles every week.
RSS Feed

HELP: Tutorials | FAQ
CONTACT US: Contact info

Search Results

Journal Article

Citation

Terpstra T, Lindell MK, Gutteling JM. Risk Anal. 2009; 29(8): 1141-1155.

Affiliation

University of Twente, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, Psychology, & Communication of Health and Risk, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Society for Risk Analysis, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1539-6924.2009.01252.x

PMID

19558390

Abstract

People's risk perceptions are generally regarded as an important determinant of their decisions to adjust to natural hazards. However, few studies have evaluated how risk communication programs affect these risk perceptions. This study evaluates the effects of a small-scale flood risk communication program in the Netherlands, consisting of workshops and focus group discussions. The effects on the workshop participants' (n = 24) and focus group participants' (n = 16) flood risk perceptions were evaluated in a pretest-posttest control group (n = 40) design that focused on two mechanisms of attitude change-direct personal experience and attitude polarization. We expected that (H1) workshop participants would show greater shifts in their flood risk perceptions compared with control group participants and that (H2) focus groups would rather produce the conditions for attitude polarization (shifts toward more extreme attitudinal positions after group discussion). However, the results provide only modest support for these hypotheses, perhaps because of a mismatch between the sessions' contents and the risk perception measures. An important contribution of this study is that it examined risk perception data by both conventional tests of the mean differences and tests for attitude polarization. Moreover, the possibility that attitude polarization could cause people to confirm their preexisting (hazard) beliefs could have important implications for risk communication.


Language: en

NEW SEARCH


All SafetyLit records are available for automatic download to Zotero & Mendeley
Print