When do people feel more risk? The effect of ambiguity tolerance and message source on purchasing intention of earthquake insurance

Abstract

The present study explored the impact of message source and ambiguity tolerance (AT) on risk perception and purchasing intention of earthquake insurance. Two months after Wenchuan earthquake, adult residents exposed to seismic hazard (n = 108) were first asked to finish the AT scale and five items of risk perception. After being provided with a risk message from ‘news media’ (publicity) or ‘peers’ (word-of-mouth), they were instructed to report their intention to purchase the seismic insurance. All sociodemographic data were also collected. Results indicated an interaction of message source and AT on intention of buying earthquake insurance with risk perception as a mediator. Specifically, people with higher AT felt more risk and were more willing to buy earthquake insurance when the risk message is from publicity than that from word-of-mouth; while people with lower AT demonstrated nearly the same risk perception and intention of buying insurance under both types of information conditions. The results were interpreted in relation to heuristic systematic model of persuasion, and were discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords:

• publicity
• word-of-mouth
• ambiguity tolerance
• heuristic systematic model
• risk perception
• earthquake insurance

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Number: 90924018) and Research Grant from China Research Institute for Science Popularization. We also wish to thank Chenying Tang for her valuable comments on a previous version of the manuscript.