Social Science Research

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Social psychology seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situations. It is also concerned with applying this knowledge to understanding the behavior of groups in various contexts. CIRA is utilizing social psychology to develop a better understanding of how weather messaging — such as severe weather warnings, or climate information — is received and acted upon by the general public.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The social science group has designed and beta-tested a short course entitled, "A brief introduction to social science: A course for physical scientists." The 30-minute session will be offered via teletraining through CIRA's VISIT (Virtual Institute for Datellite Integration Training) Program. The purpose of the material is to acquaint physical scientists with some of the basic concepts of social science. Sign up for all NOAA and CI personnel is available through the September VISIT sign-up page.

Art courtesy of painter John Brosio.

General Response Problems

Project: General Response Problems:

Among its many duties, the National Weather Service (NWS) is responsible for issuing public warnings for all hazardous weather events across the United States (US). Such events include hurricanes, tornadoes, hazardous winter weather, flash floods, and many others. Technology and research have allowed significant improvements to be made in the detection of most varieties of severe weather. But when this information is passed along to those who may be adversely affected there can be bottlenecks and problems that prevent this information from getting to those in need of it. This research will look at various facets of warning communications in an attempt to identify and remove these potential road blocks.

General Response Problems

Publications

Vila, O., Fast, L.C. Weaver, J.F., & Miller S. (2015). Severe weather warnings: Lifetime experiences and resilience help determine response. Presented at the 27th APS Annual Convention, May 21-24, 2015, New York, NY, USA Download

Weaver, J.F., Gruntfest, E., & Levy, G.M. (2000). Two floods in Fort Collins, Colorado: Learning from a natural disaster. Bull, Amer. Met. Soc., 81(10), 2359-2366. Download

Data

This project doesn't have any data files yet.

Updates

June 24, 2014

Weather Response National Survey

October 1, 2013

Public Response to Weather Warnings -- pilot study at CSU Completed

August 28, 2013

Public survey questionnaire approved by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), Colorado State University and Troy University.

Emergency Manager Demographics

Project: Emergency Manager Demographics:

Emergency managers (EMs) and National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters routinely work together during natural disasters involving weather. Such disasters include hurricanes, tornadoes, severe windstorms, severe winter storms, wildland fires and so on. Emergency managers and their staff are often the first point of contact for NWS forecasters during a developing weather calamity. This study is designed to provide demographic information on the emergency management community — information that should help facilitate improved communications between these two key groups. The data provided via the "Data" tab are from a quality-controlled version of the larger Excel file collected during the demographic study. This larger file will appear for public use sometime in the future. Meanwhile, if you would like to use any of these preliminary results/graphs please acknowledge us as, "graphs (data) courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), website: http://www.cira.colostate.edu/projects/socialscience "

Emergency Manager Demographics

Publications

Fast, L.C., Weaver, J.F., Miller, S, &Ferrin, T. Jr. (2015). Training effects on emergency management activation response. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 16(1), 71-77 Download

Weaver, J., Harkabus, L. C., Braun, J., Miller, S., Cox, R., Griffith, J., & Mazur, R. J. (2014). An Overview of a Demographic Study of United States Emergency Managers. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95(2), 199-203. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00183.1 Download

Fast, L.C., Weaver, J.F., Ferrin, T., Vila, O., & Miller S. (2013). Training effects on emergency management activiation response. Presented at the 26th annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, to be held in San francisco, CA, 22-25 May 2014. Download

Weaver, J.F., Harkabus, L.C., Braun, J., Miller, S., Cox, R. Griffith, J. & Mazur, R.J. (2013). A demographic study of U.S. emergency managers. Bulletin of the International Association of Emergency Managers, 30, 10, 16 (cont). Download

Harkabus, L.C., Weaver, J., Miller, S. (2013). Understanding emergency management: Factors affecting disaster preparedness and outcomes. Presented at the 121st Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, July 31 – August 4, Honolulu, Hawaii. Download

Data

February 14, 2014

EM Demographic Excel Results Tables Download

September 9, 2013

EM Survey Questions Download

July 18, 2012

Preliminary Results & Graphs Download

June 29, 2012

List of college degrees Download

Updates

October 22, 2013

Paper submitted to 26th annunal APS convention (see publocations)

October 1, 2013

Emergency Management study highlighted in IAEM Bulletin (see publications)

February 23, 2013

Returned revised manuscript to the Bull. of the AMS (see publications)

June 29, 2012

Investigators and Acknowledgments

Global Warming Messaging

Project: Global Warming Messaging:

Over the past several years, those supporting — as well those opposing — the theory that anthropogenic global warming represents a danger to the environment have used a number of persuasion techniques to convey their concern. In spite of these efforts, there has been little, if any, change in societal attitude in the U.S. That is, the percentages of people supporting each point-of-view has remained approximately the same. The goal of this project is to discover why climate messaging has been relatively ineffective and what, if anything, can be done to change those results.

Global Warming Messaging

Publications

Weaver, J.F., Harkabus, L.C. & Miller, S. (2013). Polarizing messages change nothing: A realistic look at messaging effects on environmental attitudes. Presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Jan 17-19, 2013, New Orleans. Download

Weaver, J. F. & Harkabus, L.C. (2012). Polarizing messages change nothing: A realistic look at messaging effect on environmental attitude. To be presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Jan 17-19, 2013, New Orleans, LA. ABSTRACT Download

Data

This project doesn't have any data files yet.

Updates

August 28, 2013

New study combines several data sets (see "publications" for outline)

December 19, 2012

Conference Poster (see Publications)

July 9, 2012

See Publications

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Social Science Research

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General Response Problems

Emergency Manager Demographics

Global Warming Messaging