Loving, leaving, living: evacuation site place attachment predicts natural hazard coping behavior

Almost all the studies about place attachment in environmental risk contexts only consider the role of place attachment to home or local area. However, especially when it comes to risks requiring evacuation from home and local area, it is likely that place attachment to evacuation sites, if any, becomes relevant too. The present studies intend to understand how place attachment to evacuation sites affects coping behaviors in natural hazard contexts. A first study (N=184) investigates how place attachment predicts intention to evacuate on the tsunami-prone Chilean coast. Evacuation site place attachment is found to improve intention to evacuate prediction, after controlling for the traditional cognitive antecedents of intention to evacuate. Two experimental studies subsequently test the role of evacuation site place attachment in imaginary environmental risk contexts. The second study (N=115) finds that participants would rather go to an affectively significant evacuation site rather than to an affectively significant one, when asked to choose. The third study (N=81) finds an effect of evacuation site place attachment on intention to evacuate. It is concluded that evacuation site place attachment could play a relevant role in time of evacuation Theoretical and practical implications for policy making are discussed, as well as the need for further studies.