Cognitive processes and information seeking concerning an environmental health threat

Interviews with 577 college students in New Jersey, a state with a high reported rate of cancer, were conducted to assess the ways in which they conceptualize this issue and to determine how they would react when offered an opportunity to obtain factual information about the cancer threat. Those who appeared to be most in need of information were found to be the least likely to seek it. Of students who were undecided whether or not living in the state would increase their chance of getting cancer, only 25.7 percent requested the information, compared to 49.1 percent of students who acknowledged the increased risk and 43.9 percent of those who denied the risk. Individuals who had not known previously about the high cancer rates were less likely to request information (37.9 percent) than those who had known (47.9 percent), and they used different arguments to justify their denial of risk. The specific arguments used by students to explain why they denied that there was a threat or why they planned to stay in the state in spite of the risk were generally unrelated to information seeking.