University of Bucharest Contributions to Risk Perception and Disaster Behaviour Research within the PARATUS Project: The Social Dynamics of Earthquake Preparedness

A common assumption in disaster risk reduction is that raising people’s awareness of risk will naturally lead them to act. Research increasingly challenges this view. Within the PARATUS project, the team at the Center for Risk Studies, University of Bucharest (UB), led by Prof. Iuliana Armaș, has examined this question in depth, focusing on seismic risk in Bucharest. Their work moves beyond the idea that fear or awareness alone drives preparedness, situating risk perception within a broader behavioral and social framework.
Drawing on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior, the research treats risk perception as one factor among several that shape the intention to prepare, using advanced analytical methods to capture direct, indirect, and nonlinear relationships. The findings are counterintuitive but robust: risk perception does not directly influence preparedness behavior or the intention to prepare. Its effect is instead mediated by social mechanisms — specifically, subjective norms, meaning what individuals believe others expect of them. People are less driven by their personal sense of earthquake risk than by perceived social pressure, underscoring the power of collective expectations in shaping behavior.
This pattern is reinforced by the limited direct role of individual attitudes. Although viewing preparedness as useful or effective might seem like a natural driver of action, attitudes operate primarily by shaping social norms rather than by motivating behavior directly. Action does not emerge from isolated individual reasoning, but from a socially structured process in which perception, expectation, and collective context are deeply intertwined.
The implications for disaster risk reduction practice are significant. Strategies that focus solely on communicating risk or raising awareness are likely to fall short if they ignore the social dimension of behavior. The UB team has translated these findings into stakeholder engagement within PARATUS workshops, contributing to a shift away from information-centred approaches and toward interventions that mobilize social expectations and collective responsibility. This work addresses a persistent gap between scientific understanding and practical implementation: effective preparedness is not simply a matter of what people know or feel; it depends on how risk is socially interpreted and acted upon.