00:00:03
a lot of the work that I do and a lot of
00:00:04
the work that we do at the the risk
00:00:05
Center is involving help people make
00:00:07
decisions to prepare for hazards whether
00:00:09
it's an earthquake or a hurricane or or
00:00:11
or also possibly um for example a
00:00:13
possible terrorist attack and so forth
00:00:15
and a lot of the work that I've been
00:00:17
interested in in trying to do is try to
00:00:18
figure out why people often make
00:00:20
mistakes when doing these preparations
00:00:22
uh a lot of times when we have disasters
00:00:24
people come in after the fact and they
00:00:26
say well if they had only done this and
00:00:28
why did people leave their cars in a
00:00:30
flood zone when they were given All
00:00:31
These Warnings that floods were going to
00:00:33
come in and so forth and basically what
00:00:35
we found you know over a number of years
00:00:37
and using a combination of field surveys
00:00:39
and working with people in Laboratories
00:00:41
and so forth uh is that effectively
00:00:43
people kind of are suffered are subject
00:00:45
to three major biases okay what one of
00:00:47
which is and simply put there's a
00:00:49
tendency to underappreciate the future
00:00:51
or
00:01:00
or too quick to remember the or too slow
00:01:02
to remember the events that have
00:01:04
negative happens in the past and the
00:01:06
third one is if in doubt what often it
00:01:08
happens is that people will follow the
00:01:09
advice of other people who are no less
00:01:11
prone to those sorts of mistakes than
00:01:13
they are
00:01:17
so a lot of which we're really
00:01:19
interested in studying is why is it that
00:01:21
people have Mak these mistakes why is it
00:01:22
that they don't consider the future
00:01:24
enough and why is it that they too
00:01:26
quickly forget the past and why is it
00:01:27
they just turn to other people that we
00:01:29
if in doubt uh well the main thing that
00:01:31
we find is that often for a lot of
00:01:33
Hazards uh people have really bad mental
00:01:36
models what we call them of how things
00:01:38
are going to unfold so for example uh if
00:01:40
A hurricane's coming in order for you to
00:01:42
make a decision about how to prepare for
00:01:44
it how many packs of batteries to get or
00:01:46
or even whether or not I should evacuate
00:01:48
uh what you have to do is sort of
00:01:50
mentally reconstruct how is this event
00:01:52
going to unfold before me okay is it how
00:01:55
high is the water going to get when the
00:01:56
wind comes how strong will the wind be
00:01:58
and what is it going to do to my house
00:02:00
and so forth and then what people have
00:02:02
to do is sort of mentally simulate how
00:02:04
this thing is going to unfold and then
00:02:06
based on that make a decision about
00:02:08
what's the right preparation to get like
00:02:10
how many days am I going to need be
00:02:12
possibly without power what we find out
00:02:14
is that people often have very bad
00:02:16
mental models they do that process very
00:02:18
poorly so often what happens is that the
00:02:20
that what they think is going to happen
00:02:22
is often very different from what
00:02:23
actually does happen um so for example
00:02:26
in one of the things we found out in in
00:02:28
a lot of studies we did uh of surveys we
00:02:31
did of of Hurricane Sandy when it was
00:02:32
approaching the coast uh was that people
00:02:35
grossly underestimated a couple things
00:02:37
uh one of which is how long the after
00:02:39
effects of the storm are going to be uh
00:02:42
often in the media coverage you would
00:02:44
say well A hurricane's coming A
00:02:45
hurricane's coming a hurricane is coming
00:02:47
tonight and people kind of draw from
00:02:49
that the inference that the the the
00:02:50
thing that they have to worry about is
00:02:52
getting through the night okay and and
00:02:54
they have these images of them sitting
00:02:55
in their home and winds swirling all
00:02:58
around the roof blowing off and so forth
00:03:00
the reality is in Sandy that was never
00:03:01
really in the cards for most people okay
00:03:03
what was in the cards particularly for
00:03:05
people Inland was basically being
00:03:07
without power for two weeks okay and uh
00:03:09
and in that particular case so people
00:03:11
were were all set to survive the night
00:03:13
they had enough beer and they had enough
00:03:15
pizza and they had enough snacks to get
00:03:16
them through the storm event but they
00:03:17
weren't really prepared for the two
00:03:19
weeks afterwards um for example we found
00:03:21
out beforehand we asked people do you
00:03:24
have plans of where you would go if you
00:03:26
have to evacuate um and often and we
00:03:28
found out that only 23% of people that
00:03:31
were located right along the immediate
00:03:33
Coast in most in harmes way and Sandy
00:03:35
made plans for what they would do if
00:03:37
they had to
00:03:41
evacuate one of the conclusions that
00:03:44
that we got from a lot of the Sandy work
00:03:45
for example was it just underscoring
00:03:47
sort of how bad people's mental models
00:03:49
were uh was people that lived right
00:03:52
along the coast um really
00:03:54
underestimated uh the degree to which
00:03:57
the thing that they had to worry about
00:03:59
was floods not W not uh not or water
00:04:01
damage not necessarily wind damage um
00:04:04
and in a lot of the the advisories and
00:04:07
the warnings coming in they basically
00:04:09
said well hurricane Sand's coming in if
00:04:12
you live on the coast you should be
00:04:13
worried about flooding and so forth
00:04:15
because in some sense flooding is the
00:04:16
thing that kills people in hurricanes
00:04:18
generally not wind it's flood is the one
00:04:20
that that's worth that's that's worse
00:04:22
and and and yet when we talked to people
00:04:24
that lived as close who as one half
00:04:26
block from the water and we asked them
00:04:28
what are you most worried about
00:05:30
left but they
00:05:34
stayed the basic problem is how do you
00:05:37
get people to have a better mental model
00:05:39
or be able to better mentally simulate
00:05:42
what's going to happen to them so they
00:05:43
can basically line up what's going to
00:05:45
happen with them with how they're going
00:05:46
to prepare for it uh and right now the
00:05:49
real problem is um that people aren't
00:05:51
getting very specific information about
00:05:54
what's going to happen to them at their
00:05:55
house um one of the things we found for
00:05:57
example is that when hurricanes approach
00:06:00
what people tend to do is they even
00:06:02
people that normally sit around the
00:06:03
internet and get all their information
00:06:05
and and uh off of Twitter feeds and and
00:06:08
Facebook and so forth what people tend
00:06:09
to have a tendency to do is sit down and
00:06:12
watch television uh watch uh The Weather
00:06:14
Channel watch CNN and what they're
00:06:16
getting is a very monolithic view of
00:06:19
what's going to happen to the storm uh
00:06:21
then in particular they if you're living
00:06:22
in coastal New Jersey you see a
00:06:25
broadcaster sitting in Central Park New
00:06:27
York or the battery in New York and so
00:06:29
you're not getting a real clear sense as
00:06:31
to what's happening to you personally um
00:06:33
so one of the challenges is that and I
00:06:35
know that the National Hurricane Center
00:06:37
and Noah in generally is sort of trying
00:06:38
to do this is trying to find ways of
00:06:41
communicating to people at specific
00:06:43
locations what are the actual
00:06:44
experiences that you're going you're
00:06:46
going to get um another one which is
00:06:48
also a really tough one to overcome uh
00:06:51
is how do you get people to to uh
00:06:53
appreciate the threat that water places
00:06:56
uh like for example one thing we find is
00:06:58
that uh people tend not to buy flood
00:07:00
insurance okay people don't live in a
00:07:01
flood area don't buy it okay and and
00:07:03
that's uh FEMA has a real tough time
00:07:05
trying to convince people to buy flood
00:07:07
insurance because it's something that
00:07:08
they have a difficult time imagining uh
00:07:11
if you've been living in a place for a
00:07:12
long time you've never seen water uh the
00:07:15
the idea that that you might all of us
00:07:17
your house might be underwater someday
00:07:18
is a thing which is very very difficult
00:07:20
to imagine um so and this is
00:07:22
particularly the case in hurricanes
00:07:24
where where usually when we talk about
00:07:26
hurricanes you naturally think of a
00:07:27
windstorm uh and in fact the naal
00:07:29
Hurricane Center grades the severity of
00:07:32
storms based on their category and the
00:07:34
category is tied to wind speed so you're
00:07:36
it's a cat 2 or a cat 3 um and so in the
00:07:39
case of uh so what happens is is when
00:07:41
people think of hurricane they naturally
00:07:42
think hurricanes mean wind categories
00:07:45
mean wind and they don't really think so
00:07:47
much about water effects um and so one
00:07:49
of the real challenges is how do you get
00:07:51
that across to people and how do you try
00:07:53
to correct for that um so for example a
00:07:55
lot of the forecast will say something
00:07:57
like um well for when this storm comes
00:07:59
in there could be a 10-ft storm surge
00:08:02
okay so but then you have to ask people
00:08:04
how many people know how high up off sea
00:08:05
level their house is no one knows that
00:08:07
okay so it's hard to make the connection
00:08:09
between that and uh and and what the
00:08:12
personal impacts are going to be uh so
00:08:14
that's that's a real challenge um uh and
00:08:17
so I think that that one of the things
00:08:18
to do would be to for the for Noah and
00:08:20
was thinking about doing this is try to
00:08:22
put ways of in their poast actually
00:08:24
deemphasizing the attention which is
00:08:26
given to the damage which is caused by
00:08:28
wind and really focus a whole lot more
00:08:30
on the personal damage that can happen
00:08:32
through flooding and which is a tends
00:08:34
thing that tends to be underestimated um
00:08:37
another thing that often happens is is
00:08:39
that when people are unsure what to do
00:08:41
in a situation and they don't know which
00:08:43
of several actions to take often what
00:08:45
people do is they fall back to what
00:08:47
psychologists called default biases uh
00:08:49
and that is if you don't know what to do
00:08:51
just do the thing that is easiest or the
00:08:53
thing that you've been used to doing so
00:08:55
if you think about it in the context of
00:08:57
preparations uh what's the default bu
00:09:00
well it's to do nothing you know it's
00:09:01
just to stay at home it's not to go out
00:09:03
and buy extra supplies and things like
00:09:04
that so as and and often people kind of
00:09:07
worry about well what if I take
00:09:09
precautions and and nothing happens like
00:09:12
if I go out and and they say I should
00:09:14
fill up my whole house with water okay
00:09:16
and I should get five cases of water to
00:09:18
last me for two weeks and people are
00:09:20
thinking through well you know how long
00:09:22
is am I going to be without water well
00:09:24
they tell me two weeks but it could be
00:09:25
two days and I remember a time in the
00:09:27
past when or last year when they came in
00:09:30
and nothing happened and those and and
00:09:32
after a while you just can't really make
00:09:33
up a decision and so what ends up
00:09:35
happening is people do nothing okay and
00:09:37
so one of the possibilities is to think
00:09:39
about ways of making prep preparation or
00:09:43
making taking precautions to be the
00:09:45
default action rather than uh uh rather
00:09:48
than being the effortful action so for
00:09:50
example um when of my colleagues at the
00:09:52
whis center is sort of advocating one
00:09:55
way to get people to make sure they
00:09:56
renew their flood insurance is when you
00:09:58
buy a home and if it's in a flood prone
00:10:00
area uh that to make it like part of the
00:10:02
mortgage so that every year you kind of
00:10:04
naturally have to you have to renew it
00:10:06
and it's not a decision you have to
00:10:08
consciously make or uh or one idea that
00:10:10
I've had is um uh that part of your your
00:10:13
property taxes in a given year you
00:10:15
automatically pay for a hurricane
00:10:17
protection kit in flood in Hurricane
00:10:19
prone areas where the community comes by
00:10:21
and drops off a protection kit for you
00:10:23
and then if you want they'll give you
00:10:24
your money back if you don't want it and
00:10:26
so therefore you have to consciously
00:10:27
think rather than default being whether
00:10:29
to take action the default is whether to
00:10:31
not take action and I think that people
00:10:33
would more more inclined to you be led
00:10:36
to safety under that
00:10:41
circumstance to me what's really
00:10:42
interesting about um work and although a
00:10:45
lot of the work just by convenience
00:10:47
happens to be focused on Hurricane
00:10:48
preparation because it's something we
00:10:50
can study quite frequently a lot of the
00:10:52
biases that we observe in the context of
00:10:54
why people make mistakes preparing for
00:10:56
hurricanes are really observed in a wide
00:10:58
variety of other context um for example
00:11:00
consider uh protection against terrorism
00:11:03
um there's a great image that I think
00:11:05
that going back to the uh the 9/11
00:11:07
tragedies there's this famous picture of
00:11:09
Muhammad ATA walking breezing by uh
00:11:13
security at the Portland airport and
00:11:14
there is you see this image of Muhammad
00:11:16
ATA uh screaming by and there's a an
00:11:19
attendant who's basically kind of like
00:11:21
this at the uh at the counter basically
00:11:23
letting this person go through and one
00:11:25
and one of the difficulties there it
00:11:26
sort of epitomizes one of the real
00:11:28
problems that UR occur in trying to make
00:11:30
protections to prepare against events
00:11:32
that have occur with very very low
00:11:34
frequency but occur but when they do
00:11:36
happen have incredibly dramaic dramatic
00:11:39
consequences is that most of the time
00:11:41
we're reinforced for not doing anything
00:11:44
okay that that the number of times that
00:11:45
we're we're taking a lot of effortful
00:11:48
action to protect against something the
00:11:50
number of times that that that you ever
00:11:51
actually going to encounter the disaster
00:11:53
it was very very rare so you can think
00:11:55
for example for someone who's an airport
00:11:57
screener uh how often do they actually
00:12:00
see a terrorist coming through it almost
00:12:02
never happens and most of the time
00:12:04
there's a natural tendency we we learn
00:12:06
by trial and error and most of the time
00:12:08
every time you put out this little
00:12:09
effort that says let me work harder let
00:12:11
me try to think harder let me put up
00:12:13
more protection let me uh uh uh let me
00:12:16
prepare for the storm or let me put
00:12:18
about more effort to be more Vigilant
00:12:19
against a possible terrorist attack
00:12:21
every time you put all that effort most
00:12:23
of the time it's not going to be
00:12:24
rewarded most of the time it's going to
00:12:26
be effort for nothing and that's often
00:12:28
why uh why people princial cancel flood
00:12:30
insurance because most of the time when
00:12:32
they buy their flood insurance they
00:12:33
write out a big check for it no flood
00:12:36
next year they write out another big
00:12:37
check no flood and all of a sudden
00:12:38
they're thinking wow I could have used
00:12:40
that money to buy a good TV you know it
00:12:42
could have been for really good purposes
00:12:43
and I'm I'm wasting it on flood
00:12:45
insurance um uh that for example um
00:12:48
after uh uh Hurricane Katrina to go back
00:12:50
another another hurricane example um
00:12:53
which was very Vivid in the press in
00:12:54
terms of all the flooding that happened
00:12:56
in New Orleans there was a significant
00:12:58
increase in number of people
00:13:59
they they see they understand that it's
00:14:01
going that what the dangers are but
00:14:02
somehow or another there's an instinct
00:14:04
that says yeah that's going to happen
00:14:06
but it's not going to happen to me I'm
00:14:07
going to be the careful one it's going
00:14:09
to happen to someone else and all of a
00:14:11
sudden what ends up happening is then
00:14:12
you have sort of the you know the
00:14:14
accident and hopefully it's not a not a
00:14:15
tragic consequence um and you know we
00:14:18
see this sort of robustly across a BRI
00:14:20
variety of different areas uh for things
00:14:22
like terrorist attacks and um wildfly
00:14:26
fires earthquakes hurricanes you name
00:14:28
the disaster
00:14:29
I think it's also reinforced from the
00:14:31
fact that that how is it that people
00:14:33
learn the consequences of these things
00:14:35
well they don't learn them from things
00:14:37
that have personally bad happened to
00:14:38
them but they learn about them from
00:14:40
seeing images of these things happening
00:14:42
other places so for example when a When
00:14:45
A hurricane's coming in or if I'm
00:14:46
worried about an earthquake I've never
00:14:48
seen an earthquake at my house but I've
00:14:50
seen a lot of earthquakes over in Chile
00:14:52
I've seen a lot of earthquakes in China
00:14:54
and that's where earthquakes occur okay
00:14:56
and so therefore you know I'm worried
00:14:58
about earthquakes but when does happen I
00:15:00
know where it's going to happen it's not
00:15:01
going to be at my house it's going to be
00:15:02
in uh you know far up in the North Bay
00:15:04
Area it's going to happen in Chile it's
00:15:06
going to happen in uh you know in Japan
00:15:08
or in
00:15:12
China I think we're actually a lot
00:15:14
closer to that then because certainly
00:15:16
right now the combination of high
00:15:18
resolution satellite elevation data and
00:15:20
block byblock uh uh information that
00:15:22
certainly the data are out there that
00:15:24
basically emergency planners do know
00:15:27
that if if if a tide was to come up to a
00:15:29
certain level they exactly know what
00:15:31
will happen at a particular house they
00:15:33
really have that information um and we
00:15:35
know have an awful lot of data like that
00:15:37
one of the problems is is how do you get
00:15:38
that information and get it down to at
00:15:41
least an individual who personally so
00:15:43
that they kind of see the personal
00:15:44
relevance and I think with um uh with
00:15:47
apps with smartphone technology I think
00:15:49
that that we're not that far away uh I
00:15:51
think that often people may not respond
00:15:53
to a generic message that says everyone
00:15:56
in West Philadelphia should do this okay
00:15:58
because because when you're thinking
00:16:00
about what's going to happen you're
00:16:01
going to think well it's not me in West
00:16:03
Philadelphia it's this other person in
00:16:04
West Philadelphia their house is the one
00:16:06
that's going to be in danger but on the
00:16:07
other hand if I get a a message that
00:16:09
basically says me Robert Meyer this is a
00:16:12
dedicated message for you uh that this
00:16:15
is what's going to happen at your house
00:16:17
at your particular address suddenly that
00:16:19
takes on I can identify with that
00:16:21
information a whole lot more and I
00:16:23
understand it's not a generic message
00:16:24
but it's speaking to me directly so I
00:16:26
would like to think that we're actually
00:16:27
much closer to that than than you might
00:16:33
think the real challenge in trying to
00:16:35
figure out how do you get uh better
00:16:37
communication messages and and how do
00:16:39
you study help people make preparation
00:16:41
for for disasters and so forth is uh
00:16:44
that there are not a lot of
00:16:45
opportunities to study that in the real
00:16:46
world you know fortunately uh we're not
00:16:48
into a situation where Noah is going to
00:16:51
run a controlled experiment where let's
00:16:53
not warn some people and let's warn some
00:16:55
other people and see what happens we
00:16:56
obviously we can't do that uh so one of
00:16:58
the things that that that I've been
00:16:59
involved in a group that I'm a research
00:17:01
group that I'm involved in is developing
00:17:03
very realistic uh simulations in which
00:17:06
you basically a person is put into a
00:17:08
virtual living room and you have the
00:17:09
opportunity to go turn on the television
00:17:12
uh you can go to the web you can go out
00:17:14
leave the house and talk to neighbors
00:17:15
and so forth uh and the goal is is that
00:17:18
in the that in the concept these
00:17:19
simulations they can experience what for
00:17:21
example would be a virtual hurricane
00:17:23
coming in over a period of time and they
00:17:25
get to watch the news the feeds as they
00:17:27
change all hypothetically um and the the
00:17:31
great thing about that is we can use
00:17:32
that as a natural laboratory for testing
00:17:35
well how would people's decisions in
00:17:37
this realist simulated environment be CH
00:17:39
be altered if we gave them different
00:17:41
kinds of messages or if the tone of the
00:17:43
TV broadcast was a little bit different
00:17:45
or what happens if the people that they
00:17:46
talk to were experts versus novices with
00:17:49
respect to hurricanes these are sorts of
00:17:50
things we can't run these controlled
00:17:52
experiments in the uh in in the field
00:17:54
the one thing that we've discovered
00:17:56
though is one of the the natural
00:17:57
reservations that you might have as well
00:17:59
there's a real difference between
00:18:01
sitting in a computer lab and responding
00:18:04
to a hypothetical hurricane threat um uh
00:18:07
versus actually experiencing hurricane
00:18:08
or experiencing a real earthquake but
00:18:10
what we find surprisingly is that the
00:18:12
way in which people behave in these two
00:18:13
environments is remarkably similar uh
00:18:16
that that if you design these
00:18:17
simulations realistically enough all
00:18:19
their Natural Instincts for what they do
00:18:21
when these things come in Kick in so for
00:18:24
example when we had the simulation uh
00:18:26
where you put in this virtual living
00:18:27
room our our worry was that people would
00:18:29
just try all different sorts of things
00:18:32
in the living room that they wouldn't
00:18:33
naturally do just because it's a
00:18:34
simulation but we found for example was
00:18:37
that in these hurricane simulations that
00:18:39
what people tended to do was just turn
00:18:41
on the TV okay and that's exactly what
00:18:43
they do in real life and actually
00:18:44
surprisingly they didn't do some of
00:18:46
these things so when we kind of
00:18:47
correlate uh the use utilization of
00:18:50
media in the simulation with the
00:18:51
utilization uh in the field which we
00:18:54
observe in our hurricane studies there's
00:18:56
a remarkable remarkable parallel and we
00:18:58
see a lot of the same bias he coming up
00:19:00
in one or the other so that gives us a
00:19:02
lot of optimism that in fact we can
00:19:04
start doing uh testing of of
00:19:06
communication vehicles and so forth in
00:19:08
in the lab which when hopefully we can
00:19:10
take in the real world like for example
00:19:12
you gave the example of uh you know can
00:19:14
we do better individual targeting of of
00:19:16
of impacts well one of the things we can
00:19:18
do in our our simulations is they have a
00:19:20
table that they can look at and there's
00:19:22
a cell phone on sitting on the table and
00:19:24
they can pick up the cell phone and one
00:19:25
of the things we can do is manipulate
00:19:27
the type of of message that's in that
00:19:29
cell
00:19:33
phone we're basically going to continue
00:19:35
on a lot of what we're doing uh one of
00:19:37
the things that we're actually
00:19:38
interested in lately which is sort of um
00:19:40
uh which is a a front burner item for a
00:19:43
lot of people not only for people in
00:19:44
Hazard preparation but also for people
00:19:45
in businesses uh is how people are going
00:19:47
to respond to climate change and uh one
00:19:50
of a lot of the with the scientists are
00:19:51
really uncertain as to uh uh how this
00:19:55
will affect for example hurricane
00:19:56
impacts frequency of tornadoes droughts
00:19:58
and so forth but I think there is there
00:20:00
is a general feeling that uh that things
00:20:02
will be different in the future than
00:20:03
they are now and a lot of um a lot of
00:20:06
this U mitigation against climate change
00:20:08
is something which requires both
00:20:10
individuals and communities to make very
00:20:12
large long-term Investments and uh and
00:20:16
in protection like for example New York
00:20:18
City after Sandy is thinking about what
00:20:20
can we do to protect against sea level
00:20:22
rise uh and the problem with sea level
00:20:24
rise is the type of thing where in order
00:20:26
to protect against it you're talking
00:20:28
about not just putting up some sandbags
00:20:30
but you're talking about major
00:20:31
multi-billion Dollar in investments in
00:20:33
infrastructure which are things which
00:20:35
people don't really like communities
00:20:37
don't like to do and unfortunately it's
00:20:39
a type of thing when you look at the
00:20:40
budget in a given year you say well you
00:20:43
know we want to do it okay we want to be
00:20:45
safe but in some sense we don't really
00:20:46
have the money to do it this year we'll
00:20:48
put it off to next year and then next
00:20:49
year becomes the year after and the next
00:20:51
year becomes after that and then
00:20:52
eventually suddenly there's another
00:20:54
Sandy comes in and there's another flood
00:20:56
and so forth um and so one of the things
00:20:58
we're interested in studying is how is
00:20:59
it that that people in communities will
00:21:02
adapt to um to to climate change in
00:21:04
particular uh sea level rise and so
00:21:06
forth and what are types of messages and
00:21:08
types of things that you can do to get
00:21:10
people to see the benefits of re of of
00:21:13
Investments today against something
00:21:15
that's really long term that in fact you
00:21:17
may never even see the benefits of in
00:21:20
your lifetime and that as hard as it is
00:21:22
to get people to uh to take actions to
00:21:24
prepare against immediate threats like
00:21:26
hurricanes as you might imagine getting
00:21:28
people to see the the benefits in inv in
00:21:30
taking protections against sea level
00:21:32
rise or or or global warming is much
00:21:35
much harder but that's sort of the the
00:21:36
big thing that's on our plate
00:21:41
[Music]
00:21:57
now
