Study: People Fear Male-Named Hurricanes More
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Which scares you more: Hurricane Victor or Hurricane Victoria? A new study finds that people are slightly less likely to flee an oncoming storm with a feminine name than a masculine one.
But here is Victoria's secret: Hurricanes with feminine names turn out to be deadlier in the United States than their more macho-sounding counterparts. Researchers conclude that it's probably because their monikers make people underestimate their danger.
The two deadliest storms to make landfall in the U.S. since 1979 were Katrina and Sandy.
The study was published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More than 1,000 test subjects told behavioral scientists at the University of Illinois they were slightly more likely to evacuate from male-named storms than female ones.
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