An Implicit – Not Explicit – Understanding of Hurricane Storms

Abstract

AbstractThe goal of this research was to examine students’ risk perception of hurricanes and hurricane-related storms to address a critical gap in the literature. Participants were asked to rate their perceptions of a tropical storm, tropical depression, and category 1 through 5 hurricanes on five dimensions and define the storms based on wind speed. Lastly, individual differences in sex and growing up on the coast were examined to determine whether they explain differences in risk perceptions. Findings showed that participants’ perceptions of category 1 through 5 hurricanes followed a linear pattern and each pair was perceived to be significantly different. However, participants rated tropical storm and tropical depression as more severe than a category 1 hurricane and were unable to define any of the storms based on wind speed. In fact, coastal natives were less accurate at defining the storms and believed the low-tier storms to be less severe than non-coastal natives. This research is the first to show that people implicitly understand the Saffir-Simpson Scale that defines category 1 through category 5 hurricanes, but not the lesser-tiered storms. The present work demonstrates a need for enhanced education of hurricanes, as students do not make important distinctions at the lower-end of the hurricane scale.