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As misinformation is common in the digital media environment, it has become more important to understand risk communication in the context of communicative behaviors of publics that affect public opinion and policymaking. Focusing on food safety issues such as genetically modified food and food additives in China, this study aims to understand the communicative action of publics and the role of organizational trust in the conspiratorial thinking of publics and their perceptions of food safety issues. Using a national sample of 1,089 citizens living in China, this study examines situational theory of problem solving (STOPS) to understand when and how publics become active in communicative actions to take, select, and transmit information regarding food safety issues. In addition, this study tests the role of organizational trust in the food industry between conspiratorial thinking of publics and their situational perceptions, which are antecedent variables to increase communicative action of publics in problem solving. The results demonstrate that STOPS can be applied to the food safety issue to predict communicative actions of publics, and organizational trust plays a vital role in reducing individuals' concerns about the food safety issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that consideration of future consequences can successfully predict different health behaviors. Prior studies, however, have yielded inconsistent findings. This study aimed to address these inconsistencies by examining the associations between consideration of future consequences and different health behaviors involving different levels of severity. The main study sample consisted of 385 college students. Using a paper-and-pencil survey, a cross-sectional study was conducted. The survey addressed six behaviors under three health topics including vaccination (flu vaccination, HPV vaccination), smoking (smoking, signing for a smoke-free campus policy), and energy drink consumption (energy drink consumption, energy drink consumption mixed with alcohol). Behavioral status and consideration of future consequences were measured. Consideration of future consequences predicted health behaviors involving greater severity whereas it failed to predict health behaviors involving relatively less severity. This study found that the ability of consideration of future consequences to predict different health behaviors depends on the perceived severity associated with the behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the factors that impact the effectiveness of energy drink-related health messages. Specifically, this study examined how behavioral status moderates the effects of the temporal contexts described in messages related to energy drink consumption. A total of 823 college students enrolled in a northeastern university participated in this study. A 2 (temporal context: proximate vs. distant) × 3 (behavioral status: non-initiator vs. former consumer vs. current consumer) experiment was conducted. Proximate context messages were more effective for non-initiators and current consumers in influencing descriptive norms and attitudes respectively, whereas distant context messages were marginally more effective for former consumers in influencing descriptive norms. The findings contribute to health promotion research by advancing scholarly understanding of the various behavioral status-dependent psychological effects of temporal context. Moreover, the results have implications for designing effective health campaign messages targeted to college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by the persuasion knowledge model, this study investigated how the fit between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a sin company that makes negative societal contributions influences consumers' responses. Specifically, using a sample of 234 Koreans, it examined whether individual differences in need for cognition (NFC) moderate CSR-company fit and how such NFC-moderated fit affects consumers' responses through two distinct perceived motives (i.e. public-serving motive, self-serving motive). The analysis showed that NFC moderated the fit's influence on perceived public-serving motives, perceived self-serving motives, and attitudes toward CSR. It also indicated that the NFC-moderated fit indirectly impacted attitudes toward CSR and positive word-of-mouth intentions via perceived public-serving motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do consumers perceive risks associated with food contamination? How do they respond to foodborne illness outbreaks and food recalls resulting from food contamination? We report findings from an experiment (N = 1,010) in which participants were exposed to a simulated news report on a food contamination incident that had led to a foodborne illness outbreak and voluntary food recalls. Two characteristics of the food contamination incident were experimentally manipulated – severity (i.e., how serious the consequences of the incident were) and intentionality (i.e., whether the incident was caused by an accident or an intentional act to harm). We found that higher severity generally led to higher risk perceptions and risk-reduction intentions. A contamination incident attributed to an intentional act to harm, as opposed to an accident, caused greater intentions to temporarily reduce consumption of the contaminated food and to seek out more information, but only when incident severity was relatively low. Implications of these findings for effectively communicating food contamination risks are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective health communication requires various strategies. This study focused on two framing strategies closely relevant to health issues. Specifically, it examined how temporal framing moderates the effects of gain-loss framing on social distancing with particular attention to the underlying affective mechanisms of these interactions. A 2 (temporal framing: proximal vs. distal) X 2 (gain-loss framing: gain vs. loss) randomized experiment was conducted with 114 undergraduate students in Korea. The results showed that loss-framing was more effective than gain-framing when presented in temporally proximal frames, but such differences diminished when presented in temporally distal frames. The interaction effects of temporal framing and gain-loss framing had indirect effects on attitudes via fear and anger. They also had an indirect effect on intentions via fear. This study's results enhance our understanding of framing effects by testing the interaction effects between two types of framing in the context of social distancing and clarifying affective mediating processes through which framing exerts its effects. These findings have practical implications for designing effective health messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adapting to the remote working environment has been one of the most visible challenges for many organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. As employee creativity helps organizations' survival and resilience during times of crisis, this study aims to examine the role of leadership communication, family-supportive leadership communication in particular, in fostering creativity among work-from-home employees. The current study specifically focuses on the mediating processes in this relationship and the moderating role of employees' work-life segmentation preferences, using a survey of 449 employees who have worked from home during the COVID-19 outbreak. The results showed that employee-organization relationship (EOR) quality, positive affect, and work-life enrichment mediate the relationship between family-supportive leadership communication and employee creativity. The effects of family-supportive leadership communication on employees' positive affect and work-life enrichment were more prominent for those who prefer to segment their work and lives. This paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for leadership in organizational communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated how normative information on Facebook (i.e., the number of Likes on a Facebook post and a refuting comment) influences one's intention to share a rumor post regarding genetically modified foods. The results of an online experiment with 630 Facebook users showed that a high number of Likes increased the intention to share the post through perceived descriptive and injunctive norms of sharing behavior. The number of Likes on the post and a refuting comment interacted to influence perceived injunctive norms about rumor sharing. A comment stating that the post is a rumor increased injunctive norm perceptions about rumor sharing when the number of Likes on the post is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaching rumors as a form of collective problem-solving, this study investigated how regulatory focus (i.e., prevention vs. promotion) interacts with rumor valence to affect rumor behaviors via community motives using an experiment with 534 Korean citizens. The analysis showed that positive rumors (vs. negative) elicit stronger information seeking intentions among low promotion-focus individuals. Also, when exposed to negative rumors (vs. positive), both high prevention- and promotion-focus individuals showed stronger community motives, increasing both their rumor transmitting and information seeking intentions. • This study examines the interaction between rumor valence and individuals' motivation. • The interaction indirectly affects rumor transmitting via collective motives. • The interaction indirectly affects information seeking intentions via collective motives. • Less motivated individuals show higher community motives for positive rumors. • More motivated individual show higher community motives for negative rumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]