Cognitive and affective risk perceptions toward food safety outbreaks: mediating the relation between news use and food consumption intention

Abstract

Much research on risk perception and health behavior has examined cognitive dimensions of risk but not affective dimensions. To address this gap, this study examines both cognitive risk perception (perceived risk of susceptibility and severity) and affective risk perception (worry) in the context of food safety risks in East Asia. We investigate their roles in independently and jointly predicting intention to consume outbreak-associated food products, as well as mediating the influences of news exposure and attention on intention. Data from a nationwide survey in South Korea (N = 1500) lent overall support for our hypotheses in both cases of processed food from China and seafood from Japan. Our findings show: (1) both perceived risk and worry were negatively associated with food consumption intention, and the association between perceived risk and intention was stronger among those higher in worry; (2) news attention had stronger associations with perceived risk and worry than news exposure, and attention moderated the relationship between news exposure and perceived risk; and (3) perceived risk and worry mediated the associations between news use and food consumption intention. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• perceived risk
• worry
• news attention
• news exposure
• food safety outbreaks
• imported food consumption

Notes on contributors

Minsun Shim is Assistant Professor of Communication at Inha University, South Korea. Her research interests include health and risk communication, media effects on health, and cognitive and affective processes in online communication and social media. She is particularly interested in how communication processes, primarily in online settings, influence health experiences and quality of life and in how such communication processes are influenced by individual characteristics and social interactions. Her work has appeared in major communication and related journals including Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and Computers in Human Behavior.

Myoungsoon You is Assistant Professor of the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University, South Korea. Her research interests include public perception of health and environmental risks, health literacy, and the role of perceived health risk in decision-making on preventive health. She has been striving to develop national survey datasets, including questionnaires of perception and communication as well as health status and behavior. Her works are to be appeared in Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Communication, and Preventive Medicine.

Notes

1. According to the 2010 population census (Korean Statistical Information Service, 2010), about 50.8% of those aged 20–69 were males; the percentage of those in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s were 18.3%, 21.7%, 24.7%, 22.5%, and 12.7%, respectively. The median monthly household income was 3.04 million Korean won; 50.4% had a college degree or higher, 45.1% were high school graduates, and 4.5% received middle school education or less, as indicated by the nationally representative survey in 2012 (Korean Statistical Information Service, 2012).

2. For reference, we also examined the actual amount of news coverage of imported food in Korea’s major news outlets (including 10 daily newspapers and 3 television broadcasting stations) in the period of January to October 2012. Using the Naver search engine (www.naver.com), we found that the count was 1496 (food from China) versus 782 (food from Japan).

3. As for the relationships between the control variables and risk perceptions, involvement with food safety was the only significant predictor of perceived risk (China: β = .15, p < .001; Japan: β = –.07, p = .003) and worry (China: β = .09, p = .001; Japan: β = .13, p < .001), in both cases of food risks in this study. With respect to food consumption intention, only income had a significant association with the intention to consume processed food from China (β = –.07, p = .003), whereas such association not was found with the intention to consume seafood from Japan.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety under the National Research Grants Program [grant number KFDA12162] and also by Inha University Research Grant [grant number INHA-44774].