"Disaster Preparedness Messages"

November 2007 to November 2009

With assistance from the National Science Foundation project called Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences, the CRCR will gather on-line questionnaire responses from 600 participants drawn from the general U. S. population about preparing for a terrorist attack. The study explores how preparedness messages that appeal to fear, guilt, or anger can differentially motivate people to develop through cognition a belief that they can become prepared for a terrorist attack. The three emotional appeals in the preparedness messages are varied by high, low, and medium intensity.

The faculty and Ph.D. graduate students working on this CRCR research study are:

• Monique Mitchell Turner, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Maryland
• Jill Cornelius Underhill, Graduate Student in Communication, University of Maryland
• Susan Allen, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of Maryland