Abstract
A New Mexico climatologist, Iben Browning, forecast an even chance that a major earthquake would strike the New Madrid fault on or around December 3, 1990. The extended media coverage associated with this “projection “ may have generated the most acute public awareness of earthquake hazards in the mid-continental United States in recent memory. In order to investigate what effect situational and dispositional factors had on cognitive and affective reactions to Browning's “projection, “ 428 college students residing in the area of Southeast Missouri predicted to be affected by an earthquake on the New Madrid fault were administered an extensive questionnaire. The questionnaire determined how situational factors (sociodemographic characteristics, prior earthquake experience, and impact attributed by the respondents to exposure to media sources of information) and dispositional factors (personality characteristics) were related to their reactions towards Browning's “projection. “ The results indicated ttat the cognitive and affective reactions to an earthquake prediction assessed in this study can be partially predicted from a combination of situational, but not dispositional, factors.
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