How we feel matters: Toward an integrative model of emotions, cognition, risk information seeking and processing

This dissertation develops an integrative framework to examine the role of discrete emotions in facilitating risk-related information seeking and processing behaviors. Specifically, this study explores the relationships between cognitive appraisals and emotional responses regarding risks and the impact of negative (anger, worry) and positive (happiness) emotions on information-seeking and processing strategies. The interplay between discrete emotions and subsequent cognition is also examined.;Using two federally funded sample surveys that focused on three different risk contexts---personal health risk, flood risk, and ecological risk to a natural environment, the twelve SEM models indicates fits to the data ranging from acceptable to good, affirming the theoretical validity of the purposed framework. Results show that four appraisal dimensions---responsibility, control, certainty, and perceived importance---are meaningful antecedents of the public's emotional experiences to risks. Anger relies more on appraisals of human agency (self-control and other-control) and attributions of other-responsibility than does worry. In contrast, the combination of heightened uncertainty and lack of self-control leads to people's worried feelings. Appraisals along the dimensions of self-control, certainty, and importance are positively associated with respondents' level of happiness with visiting the natural environment for recreation.;Results suggest that moderate levels of anger, worry, and happiness, as risk-relevant emotions, promote active seeking and elaborative processing. Information insufficiency and informational subjective norms function consistently to predict information seeking and systematic processing positively and to predict heuristic processing negatively. Informational subjective norms, negative emotions, and cognitive appraisals of uncertainty and importance are all associated information insufficiency.;Anger and worry interact with people's cognitive evaluations of how much information they feel they need to influence subsequent information seeking and analytical processing. In contrast, feeling happy operates independently of information insufficiency to drive active seeking and deliberative thinking. The findings also indicate that perceived importance of risk issues can sever as a valuable predictor in several ways. Together, the integrative model affirms a more promising conceptualization of emotions based on cognitive appraisals and action tendencies rather than based primarily on their valence. Implications for risk communication scholarship and practice are discussed.