Border Bias: The Belief that State Borders can Protect Against Disasters

Abstract:     
In this research we document a bias in which people underestimate the severity of a disaster when it spreads from a different state but not when it originates in the same state, despite both the affected locations being equidistant from them. We term this the border bias. Using research on categorization, we propose that people consider locations within a state to be part of the same superordinate category but out-of-state locations to be part of a different superordinate category. The border bias occurs because people apply state-based categorization to events that are not governed by such human-made boundaries. Such a belief results in the state border being considered a physical barrier that can keep disasters at bay. We demonstrate the bias for different types of disaster and test the underlying process across three studies.

Keywords: Categorization, Public Policy, Cognitive Bias, Geographic Bias, Maps, Risk, Probability

JEL Classification: D81, C91, D80, D89, J18

Accepted Paper Series