Examining associations between citizens' beliefs and attitudes about uncertainty and their earthquake risk judgments, preparedness intentions, and mitigation policy support in Japan and the United States

Although hazards are inherently uncertain, research on citizens' judgments of risk, hazard preparedness, and support for mitigation policies has rarely accounted for citizens' beliefs about the uncertainty of fields estimating hazard risk or in science as providing accurate, unbiased knowledge, nor citizens' need to achieve quick, certain answers. Parallel online surveys of residents of earthquake-prone areas of Japan and the United States revealed that belief in scientific positivism increased policy support in both countries (as did need for closure among Americans), and belief in seismological uncertainty reduced judged earthquake risk in Japan, with small effect sizes. Preparedness was unaffected by these predictors. Associations of other factors (quake experience; trust in experts; demographics) with dependent variables were consistent with other studies, and Japanese-American differences were small on dependent variables and in most predictors. Motivation (i.e., high involvement with the topic, relevance of the fictional earthquake rupture forecast in a quasi-experiment embedded in the survey, and judged ability to use its information) strongly affected judged risk, preparedness and policy support. Low-motivation Japanese and high-motivation Americans exhibited associations most similar to overall findings for their nations. Implications of these findings for hazards research and risk communication are discussed.