Nudging disaster preparedness: The divergent and combined effects of framing and social norms on emergency stockpiling behavior

Abstract

As prominent interventions, nudging strategies contribute significantly to enhancing public disaster preparedness. This study employs a 2 × 3 between-subjects factorial scenario-based survey experiment with 1100 respondents from China to investigate how nudging strategies, specifically gain-loss framing and trending social norms, affect individuals' stockpiling behavior for emergency supplies, both independently and in combination. The findings reveal that both information framing and trending social norms significantly influence emergency stockpiling behavior, with loss framing showing greater effectiveness in prompting individuals to take action. However, the combination of gain-loss framing and trending social norms yields no significant interaction effect, failing to achieve the anticipated synergistic effect. Additionally, threat-related emotions, particularly fear and anxiety, mediate the relationship between gain-loss framing and emergency stockpiling behavior. These findings offer insights for policymakers to optimize public emergency stockpiling through targeted nudging strategies.