Flood risk denial in U.S. coastal communities

From the SFAA program: “In this session, we apply ethnographic, cognitive, and linguistic perspectives on how local residents and policy-makers are communicating and making decisions (or not) about adaptation to increased flooding. Culturally informed dialogue could promote decisions that support more sustainable futures for Chesapeake communities.”

“In some cases, houses on Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay have been in families for thirteen generations,” said Casagrande. “They’re not going anywhere.”

Casagrande employs cognitive dissonance theory to identify the rationales that residents employ to “avoid having to make really difficult decisions”—such as leaving.

Cognitive dissonance theory says that individuals have a tendency to seek consistency in their beliefs. When encountering information that does not fit in with their beliefs, individuals seek to eradicate the discomfort caused by the inconsistency—or dissonance—by changing their beliefs, changing their behavior, or rationalizing to explain the inconsistency.

One common way that residents of flood-prone communities rationalize their choice to stay is by scapegoating—or placing blame elsewhere.

“On Smith Island, for example, many people blame the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for not doing a better job of preventing erosion,” says Casagrande. “There is an erosion problem, but that is not the only challenge.”

Another tactic to resolve inconsistencies is social comparison, which states that individuals tend to evaluate their own situation by comparing it to others.

In other words, according to Casagrande, residents justify their decision to stay by believing that other places are so much worse.

When Casagrande, working on a separate project, interviewed a resident of an area along the Mississippi River that had recently experienced severe flooding and a simultaneous tornado—he asked: Do you think is a dangerous place to live?

Paraphrasing the resident’s response, Casagrande says: “‘No! Look at California - the earthquakes, the forest fires, mud slides…’ It’s always worse somewhere else.”

“Research participants use strategies to downplay risk and favor large-scale technological options over difficult household decisions,” says Casagrande. “Many prefer to accept known risk to avoid options like relocation that engender uncertainty.”

There is a positive side to engaging in this work, says Casagrande:

“We are actively helping communities mitigate as we learn how social relationships affect attitudes and actions.”

Only if individuals believe they are truly at risk will they begin to take steps to prevent disaster. Individual beliefs are often formed at the community-level, and, according to this research, that is where interventions are most effective.