Strategic ignorance and earthquake attitude: A look from the behavioral paradigm

Earthquakes have caused destruction and loss of life throughout history. Despite the scientific and technical developments in the last few centuries, the growth of cities, high population growth and poor-quality structures have increased the possible damage of the earthquake. It has been accepted that today it is not possible to know the time of earthquakes beforehand, but predictions can be obtained through statistical models; this situation highlighted the importance of general preparedness against earthquakes. The predictions in the earthquake engineering literature are that, as a result of the 1999 Gölcük-Düzce earthquake, the compression in the part of the North Marmara Fault Line passing through the Marmara Sea has increased, and there will be an earthquake of at least 7 magnitude that will affect Istanbul. In 2019, Istanbul Earthquake Workshop was held under the presidency of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and it was estimated that thousands of lives would be lost in Istanbul as a result of the expected earthquake. In this respect, earthquake preparedness and safety culture are essential in Turkey. The aim of the thesis is to examine the psychological factors that are thought to have a possible effect on the earthquake preparedness of individuals and to bring a new perspective from the behavioral paradigm. Risk attitude, fatalism attitude and strategic ignorance attitude were included in the research model; Linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the direct effects of these variables on earthquake preparedness. As a result of the analysis, the effect of fatalism attitude in earthquake preparedness could not be found, but the negative effects of risk attitude and strategic ignorance were found. Keywords: Earthquake preparedness, disaster management, behavioral decision making, behavioral paradigm, strategic ignorance, fatalism, risk attitude.