If we named our hurricanes differently, would it save lives?

If we named our hurricanes differently, would it save lives?

Picture this scenario: it’s mid-October and a weather alert pops on your screen, advising you that a hurricane is headed our way. It’s still four days away, and while they’re not altogether certain how powerful it will be, or where it may strike land, you’re thinking – what should I do to prepare, if anything? 

Now suppose you heard that the hurricane’s name was Jennifer.  But later you learned that it was named Jack.  Would it make a difference?

Apparently it would, according to researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who maintain that people judge hurricane risk, in part, based on its name.  In their study “Why Have Female Hurricanes Killed More People than Male Ones?” they explain that the more feminine the name, the less likely people are to take preparatory action (note: their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Said the authors:  

“Meteorologists and geoscientists have called for greater consideration of social science factors that predict responses to natural hazards. We answer this call by highlighting the influence of an unexplored social factor, gender-based expectations, on the human toll of hurricanes that are assigned gendered names. Feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness. Using names such as Eloise or Charlie for referencing hurricanes has been thought by meteorologists to enhance the clarity and recall of storm information. We show that this practice also taps into well-developed and widely held gender stereotypes, with potentially deadly consequences.”

The authors’ conclusions been challenged on several counts, but their message is worth serious consideration: would we save lives if we named hurricanes based on their severity? In other words, when we decide whether to take action, for a coming storm, to what degree are we influenced by the relative femininity and masculinity of a hurricane’s name?

The authors’ analysis included 94 hurricanes that struck the U.S. between 1950 and 2012, recognizing that up until 1979, hurricanes were only given female names (for the dataset 1950-1978, the researchers did examine the relative femininity of the name).

The study was strongly criticized by social scientist Jeff Lazo from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. According to an article by Ed Yong, on National Geographic’s web site, “[Lazo] thinks the pattern is most likely a statistical fluke which arose because of the ways in which the team analyzed their data.”

As the debates takes flight, few would disagree that that “men are linked to strength and aggression, and women with warmth and passivity,” according to Yong’s article. The question is: do these unconscious biases have real-life consequences in how we prepare for impending storms?

Said study author Sharon Shavitt, as quoted in Yong’s article: “It may make sense to move away from human names, but other labels could also create problems if they are associated with perceptions of mildness or gentleness. . . . The key is to provide information and labels that are relevant to the storm’s severity.”

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