ism—were able to predict self-protective behavior with significantly greater accuracy than were the socio-economic variables, consistent with previous findings of self-protective health behavior (Prentice-Dunn and Rogers, 1986; Weinstein, 1993). This suggests that a model of adaptation to changing environmental conditions based purely on the financial or economic ability to adapt, but ignoring the psychological factors that provide motivation to adapt, is incomplete, and potentially misleading.

Other work has examined how behavioral factors influence the perception of information that may be relevant for adaptation and development. Weber (1997) examined the conditions under which farmers in the United States were more likely to believe in climate change, and hence be likely to incorporate information about climate change into their decisions. She found that not just the type of information that they received, but also the number of sources from which they received it, influenced the extent to which they believed it. Additionally, whether a given farmers had a subscription to a daily newspaper or a farm journal made a large difference, with those people subscribing to a news source (rather than purchasing one irregularly) being more receptive to information about climate change.

Others have called for greater research on the role of behavioral factors in development and adaptation. Nicholls (1999), for example, has argued that cognitive illusions play an important role in how people interpret environmental information, such as weather and climate forecasts. Similarly, Podestá et al. (2002) have suggested that mental models of climate and El Niño can highly influence whether farmers in Argentina use seasonal climate forecasts to guide their decisionmaking. Grether (1994) has argued that behavioral factors can play a strong role in the performance of agricultural commodities markets, a central institution of development. Bertrand et al. (2004) have argued that behavioral factors can help us to understand poverty and underdevelopment. Some have argued that a behaviorally-grounded reluctance to use new information creates a need for more effective practices of science communication (Klopper et al., 2006). Patt (2001) showed that farmers in Zimbabwe applied a common behavioral heuristic, probability matching, when interpreting probabilistic information about seasonal climate. Johnson et al. (1993) showed how biased perceptions of flood risk in the United States can destroy insurance markets; except in the immediate aftermath of a flood, people rate the likelihood of flooding as low, and do not purchase insurance even when offered at subsidized prices.

Returning to the issue of adaptation as risk management, it is important to examine how both the seriousness and the likelihood of outcomes are perceived. Two factors may influence the perception of the former. The first factor is perceived ownership. The _endowment effect_ describes the additional worth people place in items that they currently possess, compared to items that they do not yet possess (Kahneman et al., 1990; Thaler, 1991). When taking an action will lead to both gains (acquiring something new) and losses (giving up something already possessed), people’s decisions will be dominated by the potential losses, and they have a propensity to do nothing. The second factor is perceived responsibility. The _omission bias_ describes people’s unwillingness to take an action with potentially negative consequences, even when taking that action will eliminate another risk that is at least as severe, out of a desire to avoid per6