ISTPP Research – A new study published in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (IJDRR)
A new study published in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (IJDRR) introduces a novel approach to tackle a persistent problem in research of environmental hazards risk perceptions: the underestimation of social capital’s emotive dimension. In this collaborative work, ISTPP researchers Rotem Dvir and Carol Goldsmith and ISTPP research fellow Hyunseok Hwang, leverage textual data collected from open-ended survey questions to analyze public expressions and emotional bonds to their social environments.
Utilizing a recent public opinion survey from central Texas (2023-2024), the authors present text-based measures of social capital to complement traditional survey indicators.
The researchers argue that many studies struggle to capture the full spectrum of social capital’s influence due to their reliance on survey-based metrics, which often omit crucial emotional components. To bridge this gap, they employ textual data from the survey, using analytical tools to assess its alignment with an emotion-focused understanding of social capital. Further enhancing their methodology, they utilize Large Language Models (LLMs) to deeply unpack and validate their textual analysis. A new social capital index, derived from this textual data, is then integrated into their empirical framework and tested across multiple models.
The empirical findings demonstrate that the text-based and traditional survey-derived social capital measures exhibit divergent relationships with individual perceptions of direct health risks from environmental hazards. These findings offer significant implications for public health behaviors amidst escalating environmental threats, contribute to the theoretical understanding of social capital, and underscore the importance of methodological plurality when examining complex concepts.
