Theme for 2016: Recognizing and representing eventsRisk communication, where scientists inform policy-makers
or the populace of the probability and magnitude of possible
disasters, is essential to disaster management – enabling
people to make better decisions regarding preventative steps,
evacuations, etc. Psychological research, however, has
identified multiple biases that can affect people’s
interpretation of probabilities and thus risk. For example,
availability (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) is known to
confound probability estimates while the descriptionexperience
gap (D-E Gap) (Hertwig & Erev, 2009) shows low
probability events being over-weighted when described and
under-weighted when learnt from laboratory tasks. This paper
examines how probability descriptions interact with real
world experience of events. Responses from 294 participants
across 8 conditions showed that people’s responses, given the
same described probabilities and consequences, were altered
by their familiarity with the disaster (bushfire vs earthquake)
and its salience to them personally. The implications of this
for risk communication are discussed.Matthew B. Welsh, Sandy Steacy, Steve H. Begg, Daniel J. Navarr
