People-environment interaction issues include mitigation of the human environmental footprint, and human adaptation to increasing natural hazard phenomena. Regarding the second issue, a meta-analysis by van Valkengoed and Steg (2019a, 2019b) highlights social-psychological variables capable of improving human adaptation to environmental changes: among the variables, place attachment results to be studied only a few times. Bonaiuto et al's (2016) review looks at common patterns in the sparse literature on place attachment and natural hazard risk: overall, home place attachment increases risk perception and risk knowledge, while its effect on risk coping depends on risk level and on coping behaviour (evacuation behaviour is problematic as requires individuals to leave their home to go to affectively non-significant places). On parallel, affective relations with evacuation places for environmental hazards has been rarely investigated (Scannell et al., 2016; Scannell et al., 2017), and place attachment manipulation has almost never been investigated (Scannell, Gifford, 2016). Considering these two literature gaps and the increasing relevance such a topic acquired in the very last five years (as shown by all the above reported references), the aim is twofold: trying two procedures to manipulate place attachment; and testing if a stronger Evacuation site Place Attachment (EPA) increases risk perception and risk coping. Study 1 is a correlational study on place attachment functions in a real risk context. Study 2 creates an explicit place attachment function manipulation technique, with measures for manipulation check, risk perception and risk coping. Study 3 employs an AAT (Approach Avoidance Task) procedure in order to manipulate EPA, with manipulation check, risk perception and risk coping measures. Expected result is a positive relationship between evacuation site place attachment, presence of features related to place attachment functions, and coping behaviours.
If the results of this study will be as expected, this work will present both theoretical, methodological and practical innovative implications. From a theoretical and methodological point of view, it will be shown for the first time that EPA can be manipulated and that it can causally affects risk perception and risk coping. From a practical point of view, this would mean that risk managers have to consider and present relevant evacuation areas not only as the arrival point of the evacuation procedure, but rather as places that should be meaningful and affectively important to people, before they will be used to evacuate during a natural hazard. The study on place features and place attachment functions could give some insights on how to improve this relation with evacuation places, making the place looking more ideal for the target population (i.e., more psychologically fitting their local inhabitants¿ needs). Finally, the manipulation technique could even been the basis to develop new applied techniques to psychologically train the inhabitants who live in risk prone areas, in order to have them most probably evacuating towards a defined evacuation zone. Obviously this technique should be combined with other, traditional, evacuation training methods; however, long term effects of AAT training techniques have in facts already being found in other research contexts (Wiers et al., 2011). There would therefore be, tank to the present proposal evidence, solid theoretical, empirical and methodological bases to design a similar promising avenue in case of EPA too. For what concerns possible possible future directions of this project, a promising field for the future research development is represented by the issue of the approach/avoidance cognitive nature and its antecedents. A debate already exists in facts about the appropriate interpretation of AAT results (Klauer et al., 2011). Are they driven by motivational orientations to perform particular motor actions (pushing aversive stimuli and pulling appetitive ones)? Are they driven by behavioural tendencies to increase the distance to aversive stimuli and to decrease the distance to appetitive stimuli? Are they determined by a more cognitive level, i.e., by the positive or negative meaning assigned to a particular action in the description of the task? Each of these possible interpretations have different implications for the place attachment framework. Moreover, cognitive psychology research employs EEG techniques to measure frontal asymmetry as neural correlate of approach avoidance tendencies. These techniques have already be used as cognitive measures of interpersonal attachment (Rognoni et al., 2008; Gander & Buchheim., 2015; Briesemeister et al., 2013). No study however, to our knowledge, has dealt with approach/avoidance tendencies and place attachment, and therefore such a further innovative development of the present proposal would be greatly faciliated by the present proposal's immediate results. Finally, this project will be held in Italy, but its potential applications have an international relevance and further international studies could follow. Environmental risk management is, in facts, a global issue, more and more relevant in recent years due to climate change and to the increasing number of related catastrophic events. This topic is object of research interest of NATO and it is object of directives from the European Union, which also plans to invest more money in the next years on environmental risk evaluation and management (Galbàts, 2006; Bradford et al., 2012; European Union, 2007). The topic is of particolar relevance for developing countries whom, even though only marginally contribute to climate change causes, are the most affected by environmental disasters (Downey, 2015). It is therefore clear that the investment of resources in the present proposal not only addresses a great global issue of present day society, but it also represents a first step in building specific useful know-how to build a research track on a topic capable of impacting the society and of attracting future bigger financing resources. To put it simply, therefore, the present proposal represents a three-fold future investment: in both scientific (innovation) and social (impact) and financial (funding) terms.