When Experts Offer Conflicting Information: A Study of Perceived Ambiguity, Information Insufficiency, Trustworthiness and Risk Information Behaviors

ABSTRACT

This study conducted an experiment to examine the impact of informational conflicts about COVID-19 transmission routes on cognitive and behavioral factors. We were guided by the risk information seeking and processing model and focused on relationships among perceived ambiguity, information insufficiency, trustworthiness, and seeking/avoidance across several conditions. Data from 304 participants indicated a higher level of perceived ambiguity in the conflicting information condition compared to the one-sided information condition. The serial mediations suggest conflicting information enhanced perceived ambiguity, which was negatively related with trustworthiness of experts, information seeking, and adherence intentions. These findings shed light on how conflicting information negatively affects the decision-making process and provide insight about what to consider when presenting dynamic information to the public.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. * ATFalse news article sources: https://moneys.mt.co.kr/news/mwView.php?no=2020020214428098028 and http://news.kbs.co.kr/news/view.do?ncd=4379274.

ATTrue news article sources: http://www.newstof.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=10969, https://news.joins.com/article/23841905, and https://biz.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/07/10/2020071003177.html

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.