Householder bushfire preparation: decision-making and the implications for risk communication

摘要: In order to minimise the impact of bushfire hazard consequences on the Australian community it is important to promote protective behaviours among those members of society living in at-risk locations. The adoption of protective behaviours is a core component of contemporary bushfire risk management, and is known to increase the capacity of individuals to maintain or regain prior levels of functioning following significant hazard activity. However, although considerable effort has been directed towards encouraging preparedness for bushfires in Australia, this effort has largely been unrewarded, and levels of household preparation remain low. In particular, research examining a broad range of hazards has demonstrated that neither susceptibility to a hazard and perception of risk, nor providing information about a hazard or its consequences results in a significant increase in preparation. These discontinuities point to the influence of additional motivational and interpretive (social-environmental) factors in the preparation decision, and suggest a need to move beyond examinations of the antecedents of behaviour to an exploration of the cognitive processes that bring about behaviour change. This thesis examines the decision cues that influence individual socio-cognitive processing in the decision to prepare for bushfires. Information about people's attitudes to bushfires and bushfire preparation was obtained using 36 in-depth telephone interviews in January 2006 and between March and April 2007. Grounded theory was used to build a substantive model of bushfire preparedness decisionmaking. Surveys were distributed (2006/07 and 2007/08 …