Living Through a Tornado Does Not Shake Optimism

Even in the face of a disaster, we remain optimistic about our chances of injury compared to others, according to a new study. Residents of a town struck by a tornado thought their risk of injury from a future tornado was lower than that of peers, both a month and a year after the destructive twister, as reported today in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Such optimism could undermine efforts toward emergency preparedness.

After an F-2 tornado struck his town in Iowa, Jerry Suls, a psychologist at the University of Iowa who studies social comparison, turned his attention to risk perception. "I had dinner as a guest in a home that was destroyed by the tornado the next evening,” he recalls. "It was hard not to think about future weather disasters while helping with the clean-up in the following weeks.” Read the full press release.