TY - JOUR PY - 1993// TI - Situational and Dispositional Determinants of Cognitive and Affective Reactions to the New Madrid Earthquake Prediction JO - International journal of mass emergencies and disasters A1 - Clark, Lawrence V. A1 - Veneziano, L. A1 - Atwood, D SP - 323 EP - 335 VL - 11 IS - 3 N2 - A New Mexico [USA] climatologist, Iben Browning, forecast an even chance that a major earthquake would strike the New Madrid Fault on or around December 3, 1990. The extended media coverage associated with this "projection" may have generated the most acute public awareness of earthquake hazards in the mid-continental United States in recent memory. In order to investigate what effect situational and dispositional factors had on cognitive and affective reactions to Browning's "projection," 428 college students residing in the area of Southeast Missouri predicted to be affected by an earthquake on the New Madrid Fault were administered an extensive questionnaire. The questionnaire determined how situational factors (sociodemographic characteristics, prior earthquake experience, and impact attributed by the respondents to exposure to media sources of information) and disposition factors (personality characteristics) were related to their reactions towards Browning's "projection." The results indicated that the cognitive and affective reactions to an earthquake prediction assessed in this study can be partially predicted from a combination of situational, but not dispositional, factors.

LA - SN - 0280-7270 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -