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The purpose of this paper is to understand how framing messages about earthquake risk affect judgements about legislation requiring the strengthening of earthquake-prone buildings.

Scenarios described the legislation with a general population sample (n=271). Two types of framing effects were examined in a 2 (valence frame: positive or negative or positive) by 2 (numerical format frame: frequency/number or percentage) experimental design.

Scenarios reporting the number of earthquake-prone buildings (negative frequency format) increased support for the earthquake-strengthening legislation more than the same message framed positively (frequency number of resilient building) or as a percentage. Demographic variables such as previous earthquake experience and gender interacted with the framing effects, and other variables also predicted support for the legislation were identified.

These results have direct implications for the use of framing effects messages in communications about earthquake risk and the wider domain.

This is the first study to show that the way the risk is framed affects citizens’ judgement of the value of earthquake legislation.