ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the respondents. Characteristics such as age, income, value of the home, level of education and other indicators of social and demographic status were compared for Japan and the United States, as well as for the study sites within the two countries. Respondents in both countries had lived in their present houses for about the same number of years. Respondents differed sharply in their responses to questions about previous experience with an earthquake, specifically, whether or not they had ever been frightened by an earthquake. The average age of the California respondents of the three study sites was nearly identical, except for the Japanese-Americans, who tended to be far older than the general population. Potentially, even more significant than the socioeconomic and demographic contrasts among the respondents were differences in attitudes towards risk and tendencies towards interdependent or independent personality orientation.
