DDRIG in DRMS: Exploring how anxious people seek and process information about environmental and health risks

精心构思和制作的风险沟通信息可以传达风险信息，帮助人们做出可能最终保护他们免受健康和环境风险的决定。当人们收到有关风险的信息时，他们往往会感到焦虑，不会像其他人那样寻求或保留信息，这使得他们很难做出正确的决定。了解焦虑如何影响人们的信息处理和管理，以设计更好的风险沟通信息至关重要。该项目将风险感知态度框架应用于两个实验，以研究焦虑的人如何处理和管理关于两个问题的风险信息：2型糖尿病和气候变化。该项目将自我报告的处理和反应措施与眼动跟踪（以衡量对信息的注意力）和焦虑的生理措施相结合。这个项目的研究结果很重要，因为它们将有助于我们理解如何设计风险沟通信息，确定人们在焦虑时使用风险信息的方式。风险感知态度框架是一个风险沟通模型，预测受众如何通过感知风险和功效信念进行细分，寻求风险信息和他们将经历的情绪。该框架预测，那些具有高风险感知但效能信念较弱的人可能会回避信息，并会经历高度焦虑（称为焦虑部分）。对于焦虑人群如何对风险信息做出反应，如何寻找和处理风险信息，存在着知识上的差距。这项研究审查：（1）风险知觉和效能信念如何通过焦虑影响信息加工和管理行为加工;（2）处于焦虑阶段的人最佳加工的效能信息类型;（3）当效能信念增强时，焦虑者如何加工信息。这项研究涉及两个研究：一个是在线实验，用全国代表性的样本测试风险感知态度框架，另一个是实验室实验，只对焦虑的人进行进一步研究，以了解他们如何处理信息。这项研究结合了眼动追踪数据和自我报告来研究风险信息的注意和处理。该项目通过关注焦虑的作用，为健康和环境风险的风险沟通工作提供信息，焦虑是人们在接触风险信息时经常经历的一种情绪。了解焦虑的个人如何处理信息有助于改善大量人群的风险沟通。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Carefully conceived and crafted risk communication messages can convey risk information to help people make decisions that may ultimately protect them from health and environmental risks. When people receive information about risks, they often feel anxious and do not seek or retain information like other people, making it hard to make good decisions. It is critical to understand how anxiety affects both people’s information processing and management to design better risk communication messages. This project applies the risk perception attitude framework to two experiments to examine how anxious people process and manage risk information regarding two issues: Type 2 diabetes and climate change. This project combines self-report measures of processing and response with eye-tracking (to measure attention to information) and physiological measures of anxiety. The findings of this project are important because they will contribute to our understanding of how to design risk communication messages by identifying the ways in which people use risk information in decisions when they feel anxious. The Risk Perception Attitude framework is a risk communication model that predicts how audiences, segmented by perceived risk and efficacy beliefs, will seek out risk information and the emotions they will experience. The framework predicts that those with high risk perception but weak efficacy beliefs are likely to avoid information and will experience high anxiety (termed the anxious segment). Gaps in knowledge exist about how people who fall into the anxious segment respond to risk information, seek, and process information about risks. This research examines: (1) how risk perception and efficacy beliefs affect information processing and management behaviors processing via anxiety, (2) the type of efficacy information best processed by people in the anxious segment, and (3) how anxious people process information when their efficacy beliefs are enhanced. This research involve two studies: an online experiment testing the Risk Perception Attitude framework with a nationally representative sample, and a laboratory experiment with only anxious people to further investigate how they process information. The study combines eye-tracking data and self-report to examine risk message attention and processing. This project informs risk communication efforts for health and environmental risks by focusing on the role of anxiety, an emotion people often experience when they are exposed to risk information. Understanding how anxious individuals process information can contribute to improving risk communications for a significant population.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.