Linking Risk Messages to Information Seeking and Processing

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 fi rst offers a brief look at the literature that shores up salient concepts, and then moves to a model of risk information seeking and processing (RISP), constructed by Griffi n, 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 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, and 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 suffi ciency and informational subjective norms. Finally, the authors explore the research potential of both the model and efforts to track the role of information in risk perceptions and behavior change.