In our risky world, research on self-protectiveness is receiving increasingly scholarly attention (Rickard et al., 2014). The government is stressing the importance of citizens’ responsibility in taking self-protective measures, since early threat detection by those at risk in times of crisis might give them important addition time. In order to increase citizen self-protectiveness adequate risk communication proves to be crucial, but difficult (Kievik et al., 2012).
Recent studies indicate that risk communication can no longer be seen as a passive, one-way process in which citizens are informed using standard-passive-techniques (e.g. Kinateder et al., 2013). During stressful events declarative knowledge (facts) must be remembered and then transferred into action. However, during such events, declarative memory may not be activated as easily as procedural knowledge (or knowing how to perform a certain task (Burke & Hutchins, 2007)). This stresses the importance of increasing procedural knowledge, which can we acquired through highly-engaging-measures such as behavioral training.
In this study, we hypothesize that respondents who receive a behavioral training (active information-processing) are more likely to engage in self-protective behaviors and have a more positive attitude towards adequate risk behaviors than merely informed (passive information-processing) or uninformed respondents.
We conducted our experiment in the Risk Factory – a state-of-the-art safety education center in which children experience real-life-risks first hand and learn how to deal with dangerous situations (Brandweer Twente, 2016). A total of 365 children (age 9-13) participated in the study. An informed consent from the parents was received. All children were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (behavioral training vs. information only vs. no information). The children assigned to the behavioral-training condition (n = 113) visited the Risk Factory. They received information about two safety risks (fire-safety and emergency-situations) and corresponding self-protective behaviors. Subsequently, they were asked to actively practice these behaviors. The information-only condition (n = 112) only passively received the same information. The no-information condition (n = 140) received no information. A post-test was conducted among all respondents by means of a questionnaire, measuring levels of self-protectiveness as well as levels of risk perception, efficacy-beliefs and social norms as is in line with previous research on predictors of self-protectiveness (e.g. Witte, 1992).
Our results indicate that a behavioral training leads to significantly higher levels of self-protectiveness and more positive attitudes towards adequate risk behaviors than passive approaches of risk communication. The results will be discussed in more detail at the conference.