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Attempts to model risk response tend to focus on risks that pose a direct personal threat. This study examined the applicability of one risk response model to impersonal risks-risks that threaten something other than the self, in this case, the environment. This study utilized a section of the Griffin et al. riskinformation seeking and processing model, which depicts relationships between informational subjective norms and information seeking and processing as being mediated by perceptions of information insufficiency. The results indicate that while those relationships do hold for impersonal risk, informational subjective norms (perceived social pressure to be informed) may play an even more complex role than initially anticipated. These norms may be a powerful predictor of seeking and processing when individuals face impersonal risks.

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Abstract:In an effort to better understand the ways in which risk messages can indirectly affect risk-related behaviors, this review explores the links between such messages and information seeking and processing. The narrative first offers a brief look at the literature that shores up salient concepts, then moves to a model of Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP), constructed by Griffin, Dunwoody, and Neuwirth (1999), which seeks to organize those factors into a coherent framework. The RISP model, thus, serves as a crossroads for selected concepts synthesized from Eagly and Chaiken's (1993) Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) of information processing, Ajzen's (1988) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and other bodies of research in communication and risk perception. Of particular interest is the extent to which the model can accommodate reactions to both personal risks and risks to persons and objects other than oneself. This last NOT THE PUBLISHED VERSION; this is the author's final, peer-reviewed manuscript. The published version may be accessed by following the link in the citation at the bottom of the page. 2 domain is particularly important to the development of policy in arenas such as public health and climate change. This review explores the theoretical underpinnings of the RISP model, then summarizes a decade of studies that have examined a subset of RISP variables most closely related to information seeking and processing: channel beliefs, perceived information gathering capacity, and two motivation variables, information sufficiency and informational subjective norms. Finally, the authors explore the research potential of both the model and of efforts to track the role of information in risk perceptions and behavior change.

In an effort to understand what motivates people to attend to information about flood risks, this study applies the Risk Information Seeking and Processing model to explore how local residents responded to damaging river flooding in the Milwaukee area. The results indicate that anger at managing agencies was associated with the desire for information and active information seeking and processing, as well as with greater risk judgment of harm from future flooding, greater sense of personal efficacy, lower institutional trust, and causal attributions for flood losses as being due to poor government management.

User control theory predicts that providing freedom in learning increases learning compared to traditional instruction, implying that the Web is more effective for learning than print. Theorists have also argued that navigation through Web sites mimics the associative nature of human memory and information processing—structural isomorphism—suggesting Web superiority. However, studies indicate that hypermedia increases cognitive load and produces disorientation, implying that hypermedia increases cognitive load and produces disorientation, implying that the Web would be less effective for learning than would print. An experiment comparing learning in print versus several Web site designs demonstrated that learning from print as measured by recognition is better than learning from linear and nonlinear Web designs but no different from a design including advisement. No significant differences across media conditions were found using cued recall as the measure of learning. Additional findings suggest that cognitive load inhibits learning, whereas Web expertise facilitates it. Curiously, a learning motivation tended to reduce learning.

This study draws a nexus between heuristic-systematic information processing and the theory of planned behavior through a model of risk information seeking and processing. The model proposes that the form of information processing individuals apply to risk information from the media and other sources affects beliefs, evaluations, and attitudes considered important to making judgments about performing risk-reducing behaviors. This study found that deeper, more systematic processing of risk information is positively related to evaluation strength, attitude strength, and the number of strongly held behavioral beliefs actively considered by respondents when thinking about environmental hazards. The relationships were consistent, appearing across two communities and three risks (two health risks and one ecological risk), and held up under multiple statistical controls.Risk communication campaigns usually are designed to encourage persons to develop changes in risk-related behaviors. In pursuit of this goal, researchers typically employ risk information (e.g., a message) as an independent variable and evaluate the effect of the stimulus on individuals' attitudes and behavior. Inherent in this approach is the assumption that information does something to individuals. If one can illuminate that causal process, goes the argument, one can then design message interventions that will cause people to buckle their seatbelts, recycle, or adopt low-fat diets. However, this topdown, sender-oriented approach runs counter to suggestions by many risk perception researchers that risk communication scholars should consider receiver-oriented, bottom-up approaches (see e.g.,