Reducing individuals' risk sensitiveness can promote positive and non-alarmist views about catastrophic events in an agent-based simulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cognitive model of opinion dynamics in agent-based simulations to explore how reducing individuals' risk sensitivity influences their perceptions of catastrophic events, highlighting the impact of institutional information.

Contribution

It presents a novel cognitive model that examines how lowering risk sensitivity can promote more positive, non-alarmist views in populations facing natural disaster risks.

Findings

Alarmist opinions are more likely to be adopted by worried individuals.

Reducing risk sensitivity can lead to more balanced perceptions of disaster risks.

Institutional information influences opinion dynamics significantly.

Abstract

We present a cognitive model of opinion dynamics which studies the behavior of a population of interacting individuals in the context of risk of natural disaster. In particular, we investigate the response of the individuals to the information received by institutional sources about the correct behaviors for prevention and harm reduction. The results of our study show that alarmist opinions are more likely to be adopted by populations, since worried people