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Attempts to model risk response tend to focus on risks that pose a direct personal threat. This study examined the applicability of one risk response model to impersonal risks-risks that threaten something other than the self, in this case, the environment. This study utilized a section of the Griffin et al. riskinformation seeking and processing model, which depicts relationships between informational subjective norms and information seeking and processing as being mediated by perceptions of information insufficiency. The results indicate that while those relationships do hold for impersonal risk, informational subjective norms (perceived social pressure to be informed) may play an even more complex role than initially anticipated. These norms may be a powerful predictor of seeking and processing when individuals face impersonal risks.

This study draws a nexus between heuristic-systematic information processing and the theory of planned behavior through a model of risk information seeking and processing. The model proposes that the form of information processing individuals apply to risk information from the media and other sources affects beliefs, evaluations, and attitudes considered important to making judgments about performing risk-reducing behaviors. This study found that deeper, more systematic processing of risk information is positively related to evaluation strength, attitude strength, and the number of strongly held behavioral beliefs actively considered by respondents when thinking about environmental hazards. The relationships were consistent, appearing across two communities and three risks (two health risks and one ecological risk), and held up under multiple statistical controls.Risk communication campaigns usually are designed to encourage persons to develop changes in risk-related behaviors. In pursuit of this goal, researchers typically employ risk information (e.g., a message) as an independent variable and evaluate the effect of the stimulus on individuals' attitudes and behavior. Inherent in this approach is the assumption that information does something to individuals. If one can illuminate that causal process, goes the argument, one can then design message interventions that will cause people to buckle their seatbelts, recycle, or adopt low-fat diets. However, this topdown, sender-oriented approach runs counter to suggestions by many risk perception researchers that risk communication scholars should consider receiver-oriented, bottom-up approaches (see e.g.,

The purpose of this study was to explore the utility of protection motivation theory (PMT) in the context of mass media reports about a hazard. Content elements of a hazard's severity, likelihood of occurring, and the effectiveness of preventive actions were systematically varied in a news story about a fabricated risk: exposure to fluorescent lighting lowering academic performance. Results of this experiment (N = 206) suggest that providing information about the severity of a hazard's consequences produces greater information seeking. In addition, information about levels of risk, severity, and efficacy combined jointly to produce greater rates of willingness to take actions designed to avoid the hazard. Results are seen as providing general support for PMT and are discussed within the broader framework of information seeking and heuristic and systematic information processing.