AMBIGUITY AND ANXIETY IN THE PROCESSING OF HEALTH RISK MESSAGES
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Abstract
This study looks at the effects of manipulating the ambiguity of health risk messages on worry and perceived susceptibility. In view of literature that indicates robust emotion-congruent effects of anxiety on the interpretation of ambiguous information, a procedure was used to manipulate levels of state-anxiety for a treatment group.
Fifty-two participants completed an experimental task involving the reading of six health risk messages on different topics. Each message was followed by a short questionnaire to assess levels of worry, risk perception and attributional confidence. In addition, the participant?s familiarity with the message as well as his/her risk profile for the particular health risk in the message was assessed to provide context for their response to the messages. The experiment followed a 2 (within-group variables, ambiguous vs. unambiguous) x 2 design (between-group variables, state-anxiety induction vs. control group).
It was hypothesized that anxious readers would report higher worry than non-anxious readers, and that worry would be higher for disambiguated messages. Results indicated partial support. A significant interaction effect was found between state-anxiety induction and ambiguity, such that high state-anxious readers reported higher worry than non-anxious readers, for unambiguous messages only.
It was also hypothesized that risk profile information would predict worry. This hypothesis was supported.