Cognitive Dissonance and Disaster Risk Communication

Abstract

Much of effective disaster risk communications practice is based on the equitable distribution of crisis messaging to the target population. Priority is given, for example, to getting an evacuation message to the most people possible using a language and medium appropriate to that audience. Cognitive dissonance (CD) studies, however, show that well-intentioned disaster management messaging not only can produce an undesirable public reaction, but can also solidify public sentiment to resist or deny that very message. This focused literature review of a modest-sized body of research on the effects of cognitive dissonance on disaster management risk communications will produce two results. First, the research will demonstrate that a basic understanding of CD could help disaster communicators craft more effective messaging and, second, it will introduce a preliminary cognitive dissonance index (CDI) that can be easily plugged into existing crisis communication models. This “upgrade” to existing risk communication frameworks represents an efficient method to close the theory to practice loop and begin to account for the power of CD in our national and international disaster communications.