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[HDS07-02] Development of a fictitious scenario task for tsunami evacuation attitude assessment
Keywords:disaster evacuation attitudes, measurement, personality trait
An important technical issue in current disaster literacy research is the development of experimental tasks for evaluating disaster evacuation attitudes. For example, it would be ideal if the effectiveness of disaster education could be evaluated by measuring the actual evacuation rate from a tsunami that occurs after the education, but this is not realistic. As an alternative, an evacuation decision-making task using a fictitious disaster scenario could be used.
In this study, a number of fictitious earthquake encounter scenarios with different degrees of subjective tsunami risk were prepared, and an experimental evacuation decision-making task (to evacuate/not to evacuate) was developed to evaluate evacuation attitudes based on the evacuation rate (Figure 1). However, it is questionable whether the decision to evacuate in these fictitious scenarios follows the same psychological process as the actual tsunami evacuation decision. The information that makes up the fictitious scenarios can be divided into two types: quantitative information obtained from the media, such as seismic intensity and epicenter area (Figure 1A), and qualitative information obtained from sensory perception through personal experience (Figure 1B). Therefore, we examined whether the evacuation decision-making tendencies (individual differences) based on these fictitious scenarios reflect the same personality characteristics (individual differences in psychological processes) as the actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendencies, distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative scenario types. Specifically, referring to the finding that two of the eight disaster-adaptive psychobehavioral trait "Power to Live" factors (Sugiura et al., 2015), leadership and active well-being, were significantly associated with proactive tsunami evacuation behavior in the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake (Sugiura et al., 2019), we examined if these personality trait correlation patterns were also found in evacuation decision making in two types of fictitious scenarios.
METHODS: An online experiment was conducted with 1,200 general adult participants (600 males and 600 females; 49.5 ± 16.6 (SD) years old). Participants completed a 40-trial tsunami evacuation decision-making task (20 quantitative and 20 qualitative scenarios; two choices: to evacuate or not to evacuate). Each subject also answered the "Power to Live " questionnaire. The analysis was focused on 205 serious respondents. The correlation between the evacuation rate and the scores of the eight Power-to-Live Factors for each subject was analyzed separately for all scenarios and for quantitative and qualitative scenarios. Since the sample size was large and even small correlations were significant at the p-value, a correlation of |r| > .1, which is recognized as a weak effect size, was considered significant.
RESULTS (Table 1): In the evacuation rate in all scenarios, significant correlations were found with three of the eight factors of the power to live: leadership, altruism, and active well-being. In the evacuation rate in the quantitative scenario, only altruism was significant, while the three factors of leadership, altruism, and active well-being were significant in the qualitative scenario.
DISCUSSION: Even in the fictitious scenario, the evacuation rate (evacuation decision-making tendency) reflected the same personality traits (leadership and active well-being) as the actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendency, suggesting that evacuation decision-making depends on a common psychological process. This relationship was particularly pronounced in the qualitative scenario. On the other hand, the correlation between altruism and evacuation rates, which is not known to be related to actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendencies, may suggest the influence of psychological processes specific to fictitious scenario experiments (e.g., consideration on the feeling of the experimenters).
In this study, a number of fictitious earthquake encounter scenarios with different degrees of subjective tsunami risk were prepared, and an experimental evacuation decision-making task (to evacuate/not to evacuate) was developed to evaluate evacuation attitudes based on the evacuation rate (Figure 1). However, it is questionable whether the decision to evacuate in these fictitious scenarios follows the same psychological process as the actual tsunami evacuation decision. The information that makes up the fictitious scenarios can be divided into two types: quantitative information obtained from the media, such as seismic intensity and epicenter area (Figure 1A), and qualitative information obtained from sensory perception through personal experience (Figure 1B). Therefore, we examined whether the evacuation decision-making tendencies (individual differences) based on these fictitious scenarios reflect the same personality characteristics (individual differences in psychological processes) as the actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendencies, distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative scenario types. Specifically, referring to the finding that two of the eight disaster-adaptive psychobehavioral trait "Power to Live" factors (Sugiura et al., 2015), leadership and active well-being, were significantly associated with proactive tsunami evacuation behavior in the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake (Sugiura et al., 2019), we examined if these personality trait correlation patterns were also found in evacuation decision making in two types of fictitious scenarios.
METHODS: An online experiment was conducted with 1,200 general adult participants (600 males and 600 females; 49.5 ± 16.6 (SD) years old). Participants completed a 40-trial tsunami evacuation decision-making task (20 quantitative and 20 qualitative scenarios; two choices: to evacuate or not to evacuate). Each subject also answered the "Power to Live " questionnaire. The analysis was focused on 205 serious respondents. The correlation between the evacuation rate and the scores of the eight Power-to-Live Factors for each subject was analyzed separately for all scenarios and for quantitative and qualitative scenarios. Since the sample size was large and even small correlations were significant at the p-value, a correlation of |r| > .1, which is recognized as a weak effect size, was considered significant.
RESULTS (Table 1): In the evacuation rate in all scenarios, significant correlations were found with three of the eight factors of the power to live: leadership, altruism, and active well-being. In the evacuation rate in the quantitative scenario, only altruism was significant, while the three factors of leadership, altruism, and active well-being were significant in the qualitative scenario.
DISCUSSION: Even in the fictitious scenario, the evacuation rate (evacuation decision-making tendency) reflected the same personality traits (leadership and active well-being) as the actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendency, suggesting that evacuation decision-making depends on a common psychological process. This relationship was particularly pronounced in the qualitative scenario. On the other hand, the correlation between altruism and evacuation rates, which is not known to be related to actual tsunami evacuation decision-making tendencies, may suggest the influence of psychological processes specific to fictitious scenario experiments (e.g., consideration on the feeling of the experimenters).