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| Title | Testing the Effectiveness of Task Difficulty, Behaviour Interpretation, and Social Comparison Interventions on Bushfire Preparedness – An Experimental Field Study |
| Publication Type | Report |
| Year of Publication | 2014 |
| Authors | McNeill, I, Harrison, HFlatau, Dunlop, PD, Skinner, TC, Morrison, D |
| Series Title | Brief Report on Phases 7 & 8 of the University of Western Australia & Bushfire CRC Research Project |
| Abstract | Researchers at the University of Western Australia explored whether three different interventions had an effect on preparedness intentions at the start of the bushfire season and actual preparedness towards the end of the bushfire season for both property preparedness and psychological planning. These manipulations included A. asking residents of bushfire prone areas to focus on completing easy vs. difficult preparatory tasks first, B. influencing residents’ perceptions of how much they have done to prepare to date compared to others in Australia, and C. asking residents to interpret their level of bushfire preparedness to date in terms of commitment or progress towards the goal of being prepared. Results suggest that making residents focus on the three easiest tasks first leads to greater intentions to complete uncompleted planning tasks than focusing on the three most difficult tasks first, but it had no influence on actual preparedness by the end of the season. Results also showed that residents who thought about how much progress they had made towards the goal of being prepared showed lower intentions to engage in more tasks that prepare their properties than those who thought about how committed they were towards the goal of being prepared. However, thinking about their progress towards the goal of being prepared led residents to complete more psychological planning tasks than thinking about how committed they were. |
