The Function of Credibility in Information Processing for Risk Perception

This study examines how credibility affects the way people process information and how they subsequently perceive risk. Three conceptual areas are brought together in this analysis: the psychometric model of risk perception, Eagly and Chaiken's heuristic-systematic information processing model, and Meyer's credibility index. Data come from a study of risk communication in the circumstance of state health department investigations of suspected cancer clusters (five cases, N = 696). Credibility is assessed for three information sources: state health departments, citizen groups, and industries involved in each case. Higher credibility for industry and the state directly predicts lower risk perception, whereas high credibility for citizen groups predicts greater risk perception. A path model shows that perceiving high credibility for industry and state-and perceiving low credibility for citizen groups-promotes heuristic processing, which in turn is a strong predictor of lower risk perception. Alternately, perceiving industry and the state to have low credibility also promotes greater systematic processing, which consistently leads to perception of greater risk. Between a one-fifth and one-third of the effect of credibility on risk perception is shown to be indirectly transmitted through information processing.     

Aligning Chemical Assessment Tools Across the Hazard-Risk Continuum

With the growing number and diversity of hazard and risk assessment algorithms, models, databases, and frameworks for chemicals and their applications, risk assessors and managers are challenged to select the appropriate tool for a given need or decision. Some decisions require relatively simple tools to evaluate chemical hazards (e.g., toxicity), such as labeling for safe occupational handling and transport of chemicals. Others require assessment tools that provide relative comparisons among chemical properties, such as selecting the optimum chemical for a particular use among a group of candidates. Still other needs warrant full risk characterization, coupling both hazard and exposure considerations. Examples of these include new chemical evaluations for commercialization, evaluations of existing chemicals for novel uses, and assessments of the adequacy of risk management provisions. Even well-validated tools can be inappropriately applied, with consequences as severe as misguided chemical management, compromised credibility of the tool and its developers and users, and squandered resources. This article describes seven discrete categories of tools based on their information content, function, and the type of outputs produced. It proposes a systematic framework to assist users in selecting hazard and risk assessment tools for given applications. This analysis illustrates the importance of careful selection of assessment tools to achieve responsible chemical assessment communication and sound risk management.     

在线用户点赞与评论行为的产生机理差异研究———以医疗健康类企业微信公众号为例

很多企业或组织利用移动社交媒体服务平台(如微信公众号)发布内容来吸引用户参与互动(点赞、评论等)以达到宣传和营销目的,而用户不同互动行为的影响机制及其差异尚无明确结论.基于精细加工可能性模型和用户互动参与的相关理论文献,本文以医疗健康类企业微信公众号为研究情景,从中心路径(信息质量)和边缘路径(来源可信度和情绪因素)出发,探究用户对健康信息点赞和评论互动行为意向的影响机制及其差异.为了验证所提模型和假设,本文采用大规模在线情景问卷调研方法收集数据并进行实证检验,结果显示:1)信息质量、来源可信度对用户点赞意向的影响显著强于评论意向;2)信息负情绪性对评论意向影响不显著而对点赞意向的影响负向显著;3)信息正情绪性与来源可信度对两种用户互动行为意向的影响均显著强于信息质量.研究结论丰富了在线信息互动行为的相关理论,为移动社交媒体运营商在发布信息方面提供实践指导.     

Protection Motivation and Risk Communication

The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of protection motivation theory (PMT) in the context of mass media reports about a hazard. Content elements of a hazard's severity, likelihood of occurring, and the effectiveness of preventive actions were systematically varied in a news story about a fabricated risk: exposure to fluorescent lighting lowering academic performance. Results of this experiment ( N = 206) suggest that providing information about the severity of a hazard's consequences produces greater information seeking. In addition, information about levels of risk, severity, and efficacy combined jointly to produce greater rates of willingness to take actions designed to avoid the hazard. Results are seen as providing general support for PMT and are discussed within the broader framework of information seeking and heuristic and systematic information processing.     

Testing and Expanding a Model of Cognitive Processing of Risk Information

Scholars have begun to explore the role of modes of information processing and related audience characteristics in reactions to risky situations and risk information.((11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20))"Information processing" concerns how people attend to and consider available information: systematic processors analyze messages and situations carefully, while heuristic processors skim and use cues (e.g., opinions of trusted reference groups) for quick judgments. This article uses scenarios about a semi-hypothetical industrial facility, in particular risk comparisons being considered by its manager for inclusion in a talk to the community, to explore the impact of information processing. Information insufficiency, self-assessed capacity to understand information, and information-seeking propensities are tested for potential effects on information processing about industrial risks by people living near industry. As well as testing established models, this article explores the additional explanatory value of involvement, relevance, and ability (Earle et al., 1990) and objective knowledge. Both existing model variables and new ones have significant effects on information seeking and information processing in this case, and partly confirm earlier results. Trumbo((17,18)) found that heuristic processors saw lower risk and systematic processors higher risk from suspected cancer clusters. In this study, reporting knowledge about local industrial risks as insufficient for one's purposes and self-reported avoidance of such information both raised ratings of the facility's risk and lowered ratings of its acceptability. Neither type of information processing significantly affected risk or acceptability judgments, but both increased risk ratings and heuristic processing had more effect than systematic processing. Positive ratings of risk comparisons' clarity and meaningfulness decreased risk and increased acceptability ratings, dominated other information variables in predictive power, and exceeded risk, benefit, and trust in contribution to acceptability judgments. Despite differences across studies in designs and variables, and the embryonic development of appropriate (self-reported) measures for use in field surveys, these results confirm the potential value of further research in how information seeking and processing affect risk beliefs and reactions to risk communications.     

Credibility, Information Preferences, and Information Interests

The Seveso Directive of the European Union demands that information be provided to the public by companies and authorities about facts, risks, and behaviors related to hazardous facilities, in particular chemical facilities. On behalf of the Commission of the European Communities, a survey was run in five European countries on the credibility of various information sources. This article describes the results of the German study. 430 persons were interviewed with a questionnaire of 50 items, in particular about their perceptions and evaluations of technical risks, the credibility of sources of information about chemical risks, their preferences for receiving risk information from these sources, and their interests in receiving information. Major findings are great differences in credibility, differentiated information preferences, and strong information interests. Surprisingly, credibility played only a minor role with regard to the respondents'information preferences and interests.     

Perception of Risk and Credibility at Toxic Sites

This study integrates previous research methodologies to compare the risk perceptions and responses to risk messages of agency personnel and neighbors of Superfund sites in Michigan. The integration attempted and the focus on risk messages are shaped by a critical review of the social amplification conceptual framework. The study involved all four agency groups and three groups of site neighbors actively involved in Superfund planning across the state. The first part of the study utilized the psychometric techniques of hazard rating and hazard profiles that had not previously been used in studies involving stakeholders. While agency personnel responded similarly to experts in previous studies, the responses of individuals in the neighbor groups reflected experience with toxic sites and were dissimilar to previous ratings by the general public. The second part of the study consisted of a hypothetical toxic site scenario that focused on specific risk messages at different times in the site history. Results indicate that the difference in perception of risk occurs after the first testing at a site, and that dramatic differences arise between agency and resident groups regarding the credibility of information sources and the need for independent testing. A general lack of trust in the Superfund program was demonstrated by all groups. The results indicate that problems of institutional credibility and program adequacy cannot be addressed by better risk communication.     

Avoiding Covid-19 risk information in the United States: The role of attitudes,norms, affect,social dominance orientations,and perceived trustworthiness of scientists

This study seeks guidance from the planned risk information avoidance model to explore drivers of risk information avoidance in the context of COVID-19. Data were collected early during the pandemic. Among our most notable results is that participants who are more oriented toward social dominance and are more skeptical of scientists’ credibility have (1) more supportive attitudes toward risk information avoidance and (2) feel social pressure to avoid risk information. The findings of this study highlight how the role of skepticism in science and intergroup ideologies, such as social dominance, can have important implications for how people learn about health-related information, even in times of heightened crisis.     

Information Specificity and Hazard Risk Potential as Moderators of Trust Asymmetry

Trust in risk managers appears to be an important antecedent of public acceptance for many hazards. However, such trust may be fragile since research suggests that negative performance information has a greater impact than positive performance information (Slovic, 1993). Closer examination of these findings suggests two potential moderators of this valence-related asymmetry-information specificity and hazard risk potential. First, we predicted that the asymmetry would be less evident for low versus high specificity information (risk management policies vs. concrete events). Second, we predicted that it would also be less evident for a low- versus high-risk hazard (pharmaceutical vs. nuclear industry). Study 1 reanalyzed Slovic's original trust asymmetry data for the nuclear industry. In line with Prediction 1, trust asymmetry was less evident for policy than event-related information. Using a new set of items with more clearly defined levels of specificity, Study 2 replicated and extended these findings for the high-risk hazard (nuclear power). In line with Prediction 2, trust asymmetry was even less evident for the low-risk hazard (pharmaceuticals). Positive policies in this industry actually had a greater impact on trust than negative ones, in contrast to previous findings. Results support an information diagnosticity account of earlier findings and suggest that trust in risk managers may be more robust than previously believed.     

Communicating about the Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Foods: The Mediating Role of Trust

Recent research suggests that public attitudes toward emerging technologies are mainly driven by trust in the institutions promoting and regulating these technologies. Alternative views maintain that trust should be seen as a consequence rather than a cause of such attitudes. To test its actual role, direct as well as mediating effects of trust were tested in an attitude change experiment involving 1,405 consumers from Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. After prior attitudes to genetic modification in food production had been assessed, participants received different information materials (either product-specific information or balanced/general information about genetic modification in food production) and were asked to evaluate different types of genetically modified foods (either beer or yoghurt). The information materials were attributed to different information sources (either an industry association, a consumer organization, or a government source). After completion, perceived risk and perceived benefit were assessed, and participants indicated their trust in the information sources to which the materials had been attributed. Direct and trust-mediated attitude change effects were estimated in a multi-sample structural equation model. The results showed that information provision had little effect on people's attitudes toward genetically modified foods, and that perceptions of information source characteristics contributed very little to attitude change. Furthermore, the type of information strategy adopted had almost no impact on postexperimental attitudes. The extent to which people trusted the information sources appeared to be driven by people's attitudes to genetically modified foods, rather than trust influencing the way that people reacted to the information. Trust was not driving risk perception-rather, attitudes were informing perceptions of the motivation of the source providing the information.     

Health Risk Communication at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

I have described areas for which ATSDR has responsibilities that we see as involving risk communication. I conclude by indicating, based on our professional experience and from meetings with the public where we have presented health information, what we consider to be five elements required of successful risk communication. The first element we suggest is the credibility of the source. If you have no credibility, no matter how accurate, how truthful, how up-to-date, how important, how dramatic your message is, you are not going to be heard. So you start with credibility. The quality of the message is the second building block of successful risk communication. By quality of the message, I mean whether it is accurate, truthful, up-to-date, and based on current scientific knowledge. The third element is the degree of involvement of the receiver of the message in the shaping of the message. If the receiver has not been involved in the process, then the likelihood of successful risk communication is going to be diminished. Get the receivers involved up front. That means, in the case of community health studies, get those persons involved in the community who have been most concerned about the health issues. To the extent possible, involve community leaders, citizen groups, physicians, the news media, and concerned individual citizens in the design, conduct, and evaluation of community health surveys and studies. The fourth element is the quality of the delivery. If you present the message in government jargon and do not speak with, but to, the audience, you are going to find difficulties in successful communication.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Source Credibility in Environmental Health – Risk Controversies: Application of Meyer''s Credibility Index

This article applies an existing five-item index for measuring source credibility in the context of environmental health-risk controversy. Survey data were gathered in five upstate New York communities facing environmental health-risk issues. Analysis of the five case studies and a combined dataset (N = 870) show that the credibility index was consistently reliable across all applications. Use of the resulting index is demonstrated through a comparison of the credibility of the New York State Department of Health (active in each case), the industries associated with each case, and the newspaper providing coverage of each case. The credibility index was used to predict risk judgments in a structural equation model. Overall, the analysis demonstrated that the credibility index performed consistently well across the five cases and illuminated important differences in each. As such, the index should be a useful addition to many environmental health and risk communication studies.     

Experiments in Lay Cues to the Relative Validity of Positions Taken by Disputing Groups of Scientists

Risk analysis and hazard management can prompt varied intra‐scientific disputes, some which have or will become public, and thus potentially available for lay judgments of the relative validity of the positions taken. As attentive laypeople may include elites as well as the general public, understanding whether and how cues to credibility of disputing groups of scientists might shape those lay judgments can be important. Relevant literatures from philosophy, social studies of science, risk analysis, and elsewhere have identified potential cues, but not tested their absolute or relative effects. Two experiments with U.S. online panel members tested multiple cues (e.g., credentials, experience, majority opinions, research quality) across topics varying in familiarity subject to actual intra‐science disputes (dark matter, marijuana, sea‐level rise). If cues supported a position, laypeople were more likely to choose it as relatively more valid, with information quality, majority “vote,” experience, and degree source as the strongest, and interest, demographic, and values similarity as the weakest, cues. These results were similar in overall rankings to those from implicit rankings of cue reliability ratings from an earlier U.S. online survey. Proposed moderators were generally nonsignificant, but topic familiarity and subjective topic knowledge tended to reduce cue effects. Further research to confirm and extend these findings can inform both theory about citizen engagement with scientific and risk disputes, and practice in communication about science and risk.     

Explicating Experience: Development of a Valid Scale of Past Hazard Experience for Tornadoes

People's past experiences with a hazard theoretically influence how they approach future risks. Yet, past hazard experience has been conceptualized and measured in wide‐ranging, often simplistic, ways, resulting in mixed findings about its relationship with risk perception. This study develops a scale of past hazard experiences, in the context of tornadoes, that is content and construct valid. A conceptual definition was developed, a set of items were created to measure one's most memorable and multiple tornado experiences, and the measures were evaluated through two surveys of the public who reside in tornado‐prone areas. Four dimensions emerged of people's most memorable experience, reflecting their awareness of the tornado risk that day, their personalization of the risk, the intrusive impacts on them personally, and impacts experienced vicariously through others. Two dimensions emerged of people's multiple experiences, reflecting common types of communication received and negative emotional responses. These six dimensions are novel in that they capture people's experience across the timeline of a hazard as well as intangible experiences that are both direct and indirect. The six tornado experience dimensions were correlated with tornado risk perceptions measured as cognitive‐affective and as perceived probability of consequences. The varied experience–risk perception results suggest that it is important to understand the nuances of these concepts and their relationships. This study provides a foundation for future work to continue explicating past hazard experience, across different risk contexts, and for understanding its effect on risk assessment and responses.     

Risk Information Seeking and Processing About Particulate Air Pollution in South Korea: The Roles of Cultural Worldview

This study integrates cultural theory of risk into the risk information seeking and processing model in the context of particulate air pollution in South Korea. Specifically, it examines how cultural worldviews (hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism, and fatalism) influence the way people interpret risk about an environmental risk, which may in turn promote or deter their information seeking and processing about the risk. An online survey (N = 645) showed that egalitarianism was positively associated with perceptions of societal and personal risks, affective responses toward the risk, and informational subjective norms. Perceived societal risk, in particular, mediated the effect of egalitarianism on information insufficiency. Moreover, cultural worldview was a significant moderator of the relationships between information insufficiency and risk information seeking and processing. The positive relationship between information insufficiency and information seeking grew stronger with increasing egalitarianism. In contrast, the negative relationship between information insufficiency and heuristic processing was strengthened with increasing hierarchy. This study extends prior theories and models in risk communication by addressing the roles of cultural worldview, an important individual difference factor in interpreting environmental risks.     

Bayesian Treatment of Model Uncertainty for Partially Applicable Models

This article discusses how analyst's or expert's beliefs on the credibility and quality of models can be assessed and incorporated into the uncertainty assessment of an unknown of interest. The proposed methodology is a specialization of the Bayesian framework for the assessment of model uncertainty presented in an earlier paper. This formalism treats models as sources of information in assessing the uncertainty of an unknown, and it allows the use of predictions from multiple models as well as experimental validation data about the models’ performances. In this article, the methodology is extended to incorporate additional types of information about the model, namely, subjective information in terms of credibility of the model and its applicability when it is used outside its intended domain of application. An example in the context of fire risk modeling is also provided.     

Risk Perception,Experience, and Objective Risk: A Cross‐National Study with European Emergency Survivors

Understanding public risk perceptions and their underlying processes is important in order to learn more about the way people interpret and respond to hazardous emergency events. Direct experience with an involuntary hazard has been found to heighten the perceived risk of experiencing the same hazard and its consequences in the future, but it remains unclear if cross‐over effects are possible (i.e., experience with one hazard influencing perceived risk for other hazards also). Furthermore, the impact of objective risk and country of residence on perceived risk is not well understood. As part of the BeSeCu (Behavior, Security, and Culture) Project, a sample of 1,045 survivors of emergencies from seven European countries (i.e., Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, and Italy) was drawn. Results revealed heightened perceived risk for emergency events (i.e., domestic and public fires, earthquakes, floods, and terrorist attacks) when the event had been experienced previously plus some evidence of cross‐over effects, although these effects were not so strong. The largest country differences in perceived risk were observed for earthquakes, but this effect was significantly reduced by taking into account the objective earthquake risk. For fires, floods, terrorist attacks, and traffic accidents, only small country differences in perceived risk were found. Further studies including a larger number of countries are welcomed.     

Consumer Responses to Integrated Risk‐Benefit Information Associated with the Consumption of Food

The risk analysis of the health impact of foods is increasingly focused on integrated risk‐benefit assessment, which will also need to be communicated to consumers. It therefore becomes important to understand how consumers respond to integrated risk‐benefit information. Quality‐adjusted‐life‐years (QALYs) is one measure that can be used to assess the balance between risks and benefits associated with a particular food. The effectiveness of QALYs for communicating both positive and negative health effects associated with food consumption to consumers was examined, using a 3 × 2 experiment varying information about health changes in terms of QALYs associated with the consumption of fish (n = 325). The effect of this information on consumer perceptions of the usefulness of QALYs for describing health effects, on risk and benefit perceptions, attitudes, and intentions to consume fish was examined. Results demonstrated that consumers perceived QALYs as useful for communicating health effects associated with food consumption. QALYs communicated as a net effect were preferred for food products associated with negative net effects on health, while separate communication of both risks and benefits may be preferred for food products associated with positive or zero net health effects. Information about health changes in terms of QALYs facilitated informed decision making by consumers, as indicated by the impact on risk and benefit perceptions as intended by the information. The impact of this information on actual food consumption choices merits further investigation.     

Landslide Risk Models for Decision Making

This contribution presents a quantitative procedure for landslide risk analysis and zoning considering hazard, exposure (or value of elements at risk), and vulnerability. The method provides the means to obtain landslide risk models (expressing expected damage due to landslides on material elements and economic activities in monetary terms, according to different scenarios and periods) useful to identify areas where mitigation efforts will be most cost effective. It allows identifying priority areas for the implementation of actions to reduce vulnerability (elements) or hazard (processes). The procedure proposed can also be used as a preventive tool, through its application to strategic environmental impact analysis (SEIA) of land-use plans. The underlying hypothesis is that reliable predictions about hazard and risk can be made using models based on a detailed analysis of past landslide occurrences in connection with conditioning factors and data on past damage. The results show that the approach proposed and the hypothesis formulated are essentially correct, providing estimates of the order of magnitude of expected losses for a given time period. Uncertainties, strengths, and shortcomings of the procedure and results obtained are discussed and potential lines of research to improve the models are indicated. Finally, comments and suggestions are provided to generalize this type of analysis.