Abstract:
Environmental events such as natural disasters may influence the public’s affective reactions and decisions. Shortly
after the 2004 Tsunami disaster we assessed how affect elicited by thinking about this disaster influenced risk perceptions
and future time perspective in Swedish undergraduates not directly affected by the disaster. An experimental manipulation
was used to increase the salience of affect associated with the disaster. In Study 1 we found that participants
reminded about the tsunami had a sense that their life was more finite and included fewer opportunities than participants
in the control condition (not reminded about the tsunami). In Study 2 we found similar effects for risk perceptions. In
addition, we showed that manipulations of ease-of-thought influenced the extent to which affect influenced these risk
perceptions, with greater ease of thoughts being associated with greater perceived risks.