Chapter 15
The Science of Human Behavior
Field of expertise: Cognitive Neuroscience

Motoaki Sugiura
Summary
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami disaster has prompted a change inconsciousness from conventional disaster prevention education, which focuses on preparing for
anticipated situations and disseminating knowledge, to the development of human resources withmultifaceted capabilities necessary to cope with a variety of unexpected situations. We haveidentified eight factors of the "power to live with disaster" from the experiences of disastersurvivors, and are pioneering a new science of human behavior, from basic research to elucidate
the nature of this power to field applications in disaster prevention education.
Keywords: unexpected, recovery, resilience, personality, disaster prevention, psychology, brain
science

Introduction
The damage caused by disasters is greatly affected by the behaviors of the people
involved. Even if the hazards of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis are the same,the extent and nature of the damage will vary greatly depending on how individuals and society
prepared in advance and how they acted in response to the hazard. The 2011 Great East Japan
Earthquake and Tsunami disaster has shed light on the importance of the science of humanbehavior toward hazards in disaster prevention education.

1: Problems Revealed by the Great East Japan Earthquake
What happened?
The Great East Japan Earthquake was unexpected in both scale and nature of thedamage. It changed the way we think about disaster prevention in Japan and around the world.
The "quality of disasters" has expanded from single disasters to complex disasters that areunpredictable, and the "phase of disasters" has expanded from disaster onset and emergency
response to include recovery (Figure 15-1).

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Figure 15-1. The expanded perspective on disaster prevention. The eight factors of power to livewith disasters, which are expected to be multifaceted strengths necessary for coping with
unpredictable complex disasters and for better community recovery.
The reality of the damage
An earthquake of an unexpectedly large scale, originating from an unexpectedly large
epicentral region on the Pacific side of eastern Japan, generated a tsunami of an unexpectedheight. The tsunami reached areas outside the expected inundation range of the hazard map andkilled many residents. The damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami spread over a wide
area of eastern Japan, and the emergency response scenario that had been envisioned did notwork. In addition, an unexpected nuclear power plant accident complicated the situation, and theimpact spread throughout the country and the world. Reconstruction is still in progress in many
areas.

2: Paradigms Destroyed by the Earthquake
Conventional wisdom and necessary responses
This change in the way we think about disaster prevention has required disaster education
to adopt a completely new perspective (Figure 15-1). In the past, disaster prevention education
aimed to prepare people for possible disasters and to disseminate knowledge about emergency
preparedness and response. However, the Great East Japan Earthquake taught us that thisapproach alone is not enough to confront unexpected disasters. Unexpected events are inevitable.
We must start from the premise that we will suffer the damage and think about how to recover fromit. The tide of the society has changed drastically, and what has been emphasized is theimportance of proactive self-determination3: A New Approach
Disaster prevention education today needs to consider the development of humanresources with the capacity to take initiative in responding to the diverse situations and contexts ofdisasters (Figure 15-1). For this multifaceted power to live with disasters, we decided to learn fromthe experiences of the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake. We conducted a social survey
on the power that disaster victims demonstrated in avoiding various crises and overcoming
difficulties in various contexts of the Great East Japan Earthquake. We interviewed people about2these experiences during the period from the onset of the disaster to the recovery period about twoyears later, and extracted the personality traits, ways of thinking, and daily habits (psychologicaland behavioral characteristics) that worked in their favor. Eight factors were identified through alarge-scale questionnaire survey (n=1412) (Sugiura et al., 2015). Each factor was given a namebased on the text of the question items it contained and analyzed for its relationship to tsunami
evacuation, various problems experienced immediately after the disaster, and the state of recovery(housing reconstruction and physical and mental health) (Table 15-1).
Table 15-1. The eight factors of the power to live with disasters

4: Achievements and the Future
A new approach to disaster science
Using this questionnaire, the scores of the eight factors of the power to live with disasters
can be measured for each individual, which makes it possible to conduct various empirical studies.
For example, this questionnaire has been used by various schools (junior high schools, highschools, universities), local governments, and NPOs to evaluate the effectiveness of disastereducation programs such as classes and drills (see Sato et al., 2017 for an example). Not only are
the effects fed back in the form of numerical values, but also the design of the program itself
changes as the purpose of the program becomes more specific. There is also an ongoing attempt
to make the eight factors themselves an educational theme. Students answer questionnaires inclass, and their scores are visualized on the spot (Figure 15-2). By sharing their scores, comparing
them, and expressing relevant opinions, students can virtually experience what kind of skills arerequired in times of disaster. In addition to the original 34-item version for adults in Japanese, wehave also developed an easier-to-use shortened 16-item version in order to further promote theuse of such questionnaires. A pediatric version and an English version are also underdevelopment.
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Figure 15-2. An example of the use of the "power to live with disaster" questionnaire. Students are
asked to answer the questionnaire during a disaster prevention class, and their scores arevisualized in an easy-to-understand manner.
In addition, the empirical research using this questionnaire is also intended to develop newconcepts and techniques for disaster prevention education. In order to develop the power to livewith disasters, it is necessary to think in totally different ways from conventional disaster prevention
education. How does the power to live come about? Understanding the nature of the powers andtheir origin is expected to provide hints for new education. For this purpose, we are conducting
various basic psychological and cognitive science research on the eight factors of the power tolive. For example, we are attempting to clarify the relationship between the eight factors of thepower to live and the knowledge of human psychological and behavioral characteristics that hasbeen accumulated in various psychology-related academic fields (e.g., personality psychology,social psychology, organizational and managerial psychology, economics, ergonomics). If we canfigure this out, we can utilize the existing wisdom in developing educational technologies for thepower to live. In this kind of research, by examining the correlation between the scores of a certain
factor measured by the power to live with disaster questionnaire and the scores of anotherquestionnaire measuring personal characteristics, the relationship between the two can beinferred. We are also conducting neuroscientific research on the eight factors of the power to livewith disasters, i.e., clarifying the mechanisms at the level of information processing in the brain(e.g., Miura et al., 2020; Figure 15-3). If each factor can be reduced to individual differences in how
the brain processes information relating to perception, evaluation, judgment, and action in a certain
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context, it is expected that ideas for the development of entirely new educational technologies will
emerge from the concept of cognitive processing. In a study like this, the power to live factor
scores of each experimental participant, measured by questionnaires, will be the key to exploring
the brain region that explains this factor.

Figure 15-3. Example of brain science research on the power to live with disasters. Using magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) (A), brain activity was measured during a task of coping with an
unexpected situation (B), and brain activity in the left premotor cortex was negatively correlatedwith F2 problem-solving scores in (C) (Miura et al., 2020).

Conclusion - from the author
Our approach to the new science of human behavior regarding the power to live withdisasters is not confined to disaster prevention education or disaster science. Eight factors weregiven the name "the power to live" because we are keenly aware of the core concept of educationin Japan, "zest for living" (the multifaceted qualities and abilities needed to live in the "rapidlychanging society of the future"; Central Council for Education, 1996). The word "disaster" does notappear in any of the questions in our questionnaire (Table 15-1). Disasters are not an exceptional
event. The power to live with disasters is not a special capacity that is not required in everyday life.

References
Miura, N., Yoshii, K., Takahashi, M., Sugiura, M., Kawashima, R. (2020). Functional MRI ofresponding to unexpected events in complex socio-technical systems: Task performance andproblem-solving characteristics are associated with low activity in problem-solving brain regions.
Journal of Human Interface Society, 22(1), 43-54. (In Japanese)
Sato, S., Sugiura, M., Muramoto, T., Imamura, F. (2017). Practice and case analysis of a course
on "reconstruction" in universities in the disaster area: Focusing on the post-event changes of5

students. Proceedings of the Japan Society for Disaster Recovery and Revitalization, 11, 1-7. (InJapanese)
Sugiura, M., Sato, S., Nouchi, R., Honda, A., Abe, T., Muramoto, T., Imamura, F. (2015). Eight
personal characteristics associated with the power to live with disasters as indicated by thesurvivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. Plos One, 10(7), e0130349.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130349.

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