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Published on: September 12, 2014
College students' perceived risk and anxiety after reading airplane crash news
1Department of Communication Studies, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407, USA. mbahk@csusb.edu
Abstract:
328 college students in midwest and west coast regions read one of five news stories (four airplane crash and one irrelevant) or none. They estimated the likelihood of their victimization in an airplane crash and indicated the maximum amount of time that they would be willing to spend driving in lieu of flying. Analysis showed those who read one of the airplane crash stories reported higher perceived risk of victimization than did those who read the irrelevant story or none. Reading airplane crash news was not related to the number of hours reported for driving instead of flying.
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