Translating Drinking and Driving Risk Information into Risk Perception

描述（由申请人提供）：认知科学的最新发展为研究人员提供了解释危险行为（如饮酒和驾驶）和确定产生行为改变的机制的新机会。这一点很重要，因为几乎没有证据表明，通常使用的干预策略——公共信息和教育——单独有效地降低风险，特别是当受众认为继续冒险行为有益时。由于风险信息不能转化为主观的风险认知，公共信息在改变行为方面往往达不到预期的效果。这种翻译的一个可能的障碍是，教学信息影响外显层面的认知，而行为选择在很大程度上受到内隐层面认知的影响。第二个可能的障碍是，在某些体内动机条件下，风险信息的接受者参与认知反应以减轻风险信息的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent developments in cognitive science present researchers with new opportunities for explaining risky behavior (such as drinking and driving) and identifying mechanisms for engendering behavioral change. This is important as there is little evidence to suggest that commonly used intervention strategies-public information and education-alone effectively reduce risk, particularly when audiences perceive benefits to continuing the risky behavior. Public information may often fall short in changing behavior because the risk information fails to translate into subjective risk perception. One possible impediment to this translation is that didactic information affects cognition at the explicit level whereas behavioral choice is heavily influenced by cognition operating on the implicit level. A second possible impediment is that under certain in vivo motivational conditions, recipients of risk information engage in cognitive responding to mitigate the influence of that risk information. A third possible impediment is messages that fail to engage affective responses, that is, they may fail to make recipients feel at risk. Finally, regarding risky drinking specifically, alcohol consumption has been found to influence what information people attend to in forming judgments and making decisions. Thus, the act of drinking might impede the use of risk information in deciding whether to drink and drive. This application describes an ambitious series of studies. The research first will demonstrate that the subtle manipulation of subjects' goals (represented as implicit cognitive structures) can temporarily alter attitudes towards alcohol and self-reported drinking-and-driving intentions. Second, the research will show that alcohol consumption (via the phenomenon of alcohol myopia) exacerbates the effect of cognitive manipulation. Thus, subtly priming the goal of safety should reduce drinking-and-driving intentions, particularly for individuals who have been dosed with alcohol. Third, the research will show that communicating risk information through implicit methods (versus explicit methods) circumvents cognitive response strategies that people use to resist persuasive influence. Finally, the research will demonstrate that the impact of risk information is significanly greater when participants are led to misattribute emotional responses to the message information.