Information Processing and Risk Perception: An Adaptation of the Heuristic-Systematic Model

• Published in: Journal of communication Vol. 52; no. 2; pp. 367 - 382
• Main Author: Trumbo, Craig W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2002
• Subjects: Cancer; Cognition; Communication; Communication Research; Consumer health information; Heuristics; Higher Education; Information; Information communication; Information Processing; Judgement; Media; Motivation; Perception; Risk; Risk assessment; U.S.A
• ISSN: 0021-9916; 1460-2466
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2002.tb02550.x

The heuristic‐systematic information‐processing model (HSM) holds that individuals will use 1 or both of these modes of information processing when attempting to evaluate information in order to arrive at a judgment. Using survey data, an adaptation of this model is evaluated across a series of 3 cases in which epidemiological information is communicated to communities concerned about cancer rates. This adaptation of the HSM proves to be a potentially useful model for understanding how individuals perceive risk. Although the model does vary across the 3 applications enough to justify inclusion of the case as a control variable, relationships among the model's most important constituent variables are generally consistent and strong. A quarter to a third of the variance in risk perception is predicted by information processing in a structural model having an acceptably close fit to the data.