Johnson Mark B, Kopetz Catalina E
Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
Department of Psychology, Wayne State University.
Health Psychol. 2017 Sep;36(9):872-880. doi: 10.1037/hea0000526. Epub 2017 Jul 20.
Alcohol-impaired driving remains a serious public health concern despite the fact that drinking and driving risks are widely disseminated and well understood by the public. This research examines the motivational conditions under which providing risk information can exacerbate rather than decrease potential drinking drivers' willingness to drive while impaired.
In a hypothetical drinking and driving scenario, 3 studies investigated participants' self-reported likelihood of drinking and driving as a function of (a) accessibility of information regarding risk associated with drinking and driving, (b) motivation to drive, and (c) need for cognitive closure (NFC).
Across the 3 studies, participants self-reported a higher likelihood of driving when exposed to high-risk information (vs. low-risk information) if they were high in NFC. Risk information did decrease self-reported likelihood of driving among low-NFC participants (Studies 1-3). Furthermore, this effect was exacerbated when the relevant motivation (to get home conveniently) was high (Study 3).
These findings have important implications for impaired-driving prevention efforts. They suggest that at least under some circumstances, risk information can have unintended negative effects on drinking and driving decisions. The results are consistent with the motivated cognition literature, which suggests that people process and use information in a manner that supports their most accessible and important motivation despite potentially negative consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record
尽管酒后驾车的风险已得到广泛传播且公众也普遍了解，但酒后驾车仍是一个严重的公共卫生问题。本研究考察了在何种动机条件下，提供风险信息会加剧而非降低潜在酒后驾驶者在受损状态下驾车的意愿。
在一个假设的酒后驾车场景中，3项研究调查了参与者自我报告的酒后驾车可能性，该可能性是以下因素的函数：（a）与酒后驾车相关风险信息的可获取性，（b）驾车动机，以及（c）认知闭合需求（NFC）。
在这3项研究中，NFC得分高的参与者在接触高风险信息（与低风险信息相比）时，自我报告的驾车可能性更高。风险信息确实降低了NFC得分低的参与者自我报告的驾车可能性（研究1 - 3）。此外，当相关动机（为了方便回家）较高时，这种影响会加剧（研究3）。
这些发现对预防酒后驾车的努力具有重要意义。它们表明，至少在某些情况下，风险信息可能会对酒后驾车决策产生意想不到的负面影响。这些结果与动机性认知文献一致，该文献表明，人们会以一种支持其最易获取且最重要动机的方式处理和使用信息，尽管可能会有负面后果。（PsycINFO数据库记录）
