Consistent and conflicting information in floods and bushfires impact risk information seeking, risk perceptions, and protective action intentions

A core challenge for emergency services agencies is encouraging people to take protective action in a noisy, information-rich environment. This challenge is heightened when the environment is filled with conflicting information. While investigations of conflicting information are prevalent in temporally distant health contexts such as smoking cessation, where the effects of the protective action (i.e., quitting) take years to be realised, studies have yet to examine the impact of conflicting information when the potential outcome of the protective action (e.g., saving your life) has greater temporal immediacy. In this study we compare how social cues (media, peers, commercial weather forecaster) and environmental cues (weather conditions) that are consistent/conflict with an emergency warning message, impact community risk information processing, risk perceptions, and protective action intentions. The research finds risk perception is higher and intention to undertake protective action and information sharing is more likely when there is consistency between the emergency warning message and the socio-environmental cues, whereas heuristic information processing, self-efficacy, and information seeking are more likely to occur in the presence of conflicting cues. The research moves beyond high-level discourse about conflicting information ‘causing confusion’ in the community to a more nuanced, empirical understanding of the complexities of conflicting information across multiple stages of the decision-making process, in a context with greater temporal immediacy for action. Practical suggestions are made for agencies managing conflicting information when the conflict comes from socio-environmental cues. Future research is warranted for replication and to test mitigation strategies for conflicting information.