Although a growing body of risk communication research focuses on how people process risk information, one question that is overlooked is how the seeking of information contributes to behavioral adaptation toward the risk issue. How are people's behavioral responses to risks affected by the search for risk information? Building on the Framework of Risk Information Seeking (FRIS), this paper reports on two studies that focus on the experimental testing of several of the basic FRIS assumptions. In study 1, a 2 (involvement: high vs. low) Â 2 (risk perception: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment was conducted to test the assumption that higher levels of involvement and risk perception stimulate the intention to seek additional risk information as well as the actual risk information. Study 2 is a partial replication of study 1. In study 2, a 2 (involvement: high vs. low) Â 2 (fear appeal: present vs. absent) Â 2 (response efficacy: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment was conducted to test how varying the levels of involvement, risk perception, and response efficacy influence actual and intended information seeking, as well as the intention to adopt risk-mitigating actions. The results showed that the high-involvement, high-risk perception, high-response efficacy group was most likely to actually seek information and make behavioral changes. The results are in accordance with basic FRIS assumptions. Implications for risk communication are discussed.

A B S T R A C TThis study contributes to our knowledge of whether and why citizens engage in self-protective behavior with regard to a real-life risk (the transportation of chemical substances by train). We assume that the way in which relevant risk information is processed, actively vs. passively, is a crucial factor. We hypothesize that behavioral training on self-protectiveness (the active approach) will increase respondents' perceived feasibility (self-efficacy) and the expected usefulness (response-efficacy) of risk-mitigating options to a larger extent than the passive approach (merely read about it). We subsequently propose that behaviorally trained participants will show more self-protectiveness than merely informed participants. Both groups are also compared to an uninformed control group.First, a behavioral-training-effectiveness-study was conducted in order to explore whether the training developed led to an increase in participants' efficacy beliefs and self-protectiveness (N = 47). Second, in our main study we took a random sample from the town's population (N = 614) and tested if the instructional method (behavioral training vs. information only vs. no information) is a predictor of efficacy beliefs and self-protectiveness.As expected, the instructional method used and the level of perceived response-efficacy positively influence self-protectiveness. Behaviorally trained respondents perceived risk mitigating options as more useful and showed more self-protectiveness than merely informed and uninformed participants. Furthermore, responseefficacy turned out to be a partial mediator between instructional method and self-protectiveness. Self-efficacy did not significantly predict self-protectiveness in this study.This study demonstrates that using appropriate risk communication tools is crucial in order to increase selfprotective behavior of citizens.