When Freedom of Choice Leads to Bias: How Threat Fosters Selective Exposure to Health Information

With this study design we plan to explore the underlying motivation for selective exposure of health information in threatening vs. non-threatening situations. We explicitly distinguish between two distinct motivations that are relevant to the context in question. First, the general motivation to defend one’s own opinion and attitudes by approaching confirming information and avoiding disconfirming information (which we denote as ‘self-confirming motivation’; see Hart et al., 2009, for a meta-analysis); and second, the more specific motivation to defend one’s self-image with regard to health and physical integrity (self-bolstering and self-defending motivation; Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2013). By inducing a threat through a experimentally variation of risk feedback, our aim is to disentangle the effect of these two basic defense motivations on selective exposure and the potential downgrade of opposing information. Therefore, we will apply a 2x2 design (experimental factor: risk feedback yes/no, and quasi-experimental factor: perceived risk high/low; see Figure 1) and analyze the impact of the four different conditions on the degree of bias in seeking for health information as well as the quality ratings of the given different types of information. Furthermore, we will consider relevant competence and personality variables as moderators in exploratory analyses.

With this study design we plan to explore the underlying motivation for selective exposure of health information in threatening vs. non-threatening situations. We explicitly distinguish between two distinct motivations that are relevant to the context in question. First, the general motivation to defend one’s own opinion and attitudes by approaching confirming information and avoiding disconfirming information (which we denote as ‘self-confirming motivation’; see Hart et al., 2009, for a meta-analysis); and second, the more specific motivation to defend one’s self-image with regard to health and physical integrity (self-bolstering and self-defending motivation; Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2013). By inducing a threat through a experimentally variation of risk feedback, our aim is to disentangle the effect of these two basic defense motivations on selective exposure and the potential downgrade of opposing information. Therefore, we will apply a 2x2 design (experimental factor: risk feedback yes/no, and quasi-experimental factor: perceived risk high/low; see Figure 1) and analyze the impact of the four different conditions on the degree of bias in seeking for health information as well as the quality ratings of the given different types of information. Furthermore, we will consider relevant competence and personality variables as moderators in exploratory analyses.