From Cognition to Action: The Nudging Effect of Information Framing on Household Emergency Preparedness

• In Event: Human Behavior in Disasters

Abstract

Against the backdrop of increasingly frequent extreme weather events and persistently insufficient household emergency preparedness, identifying low-cost and non-coercive ways to encourage residents to prepare in advance has become an important issue in risk governance research. In particular, household emergency preparedness often requires individuals to incur immediate costs before risks materialize and benefits become visible, making such decisions especially susceptible to informational cues and behavioral nudges. Drawing on bounded rationality and nudge theory, this study focuses on household emergency kit purchasing as a concrete form of preventive decision-making in the Chinese context and employs a 2 (goal framing: gain vs. loss) × 2 (responsibility framing: individual vs. government) between-subjects survey experiment (n = 590) to examine how information framing in risk communication affects Chinese residents’ willingness to purchase household emergency supplies, as well as the underlying psychological mechanisms. The results show that loss framing is more effective than gain framing in increasing purchase intention, while government responsibility framing similarly exerts a stronger nudging effect than individual responsibility framing. With regard to psychological mechanisms, goal framing influences purchase intention through both anticipated regret and risk perception, whereas responsibility framing operates primarily through anticipated regret. Among the significant mediating pathways, anticipated regret plays a more prominent role, indicating that the anticipation of future emotional consequences constitutes an important motivational basis for preparedness decisions. No significant interaction effect is found between the two types of framing, suggesting that goal framing and responsibility framing shape residents’ decisions mainly through relatively independent pathways rather than through mutually reinforcing effects. By innovatively introducing anticipated regret from behavioral economics into the study of household emergency preparedness, this research reveals the psychological transformation mechanisms through which framed information is translated into preparedness intentions. More broadly, the study extends existing discussions of risk communication and information framing in the contexts of public safety and disaster risk reduction, and provides empirical evidence for optimizing routine risk communication strategies and improving households’ ex ante preparedness levels.

Authors

• Qinxia Wang, Beihang University
  Presenting Author

• Shuang Zhong, Beihang University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author