CRED at the California Fire EMS Disaster Conference

CRED graduate student Katherine Thompson presented a crash course in psychology to an audience of fire chiefs, emergency managers, city planners, and other first response personnel at this year’s CFED West meeting in Palm Springs. The 90-minute lesson addressed the question of why the public sometimes seems to ignore the threat of natural hazards. Katherine explained psychological insights from researchers within and outside of CRED: how people undervalue the effects of future events; how having experience with a hazard may lead us to under-weight its likelihood; how the psychology of motivation can help communicators improve messaging; and how our brains, though amazing in many ways, place limits on our attention, our memory, and our concern.