Information search as a function of stimulus uncertainty and the importance of the response.

Abstract

48 undergraduates received information about fictitious foreign countries that varied in amount (2 vs. 10 statements) of favorability toward the country (positive vs. negative), and the consistency of the statements in a description (consistent vs. unrelated vs. inconsistent). For each country, Ss indicated how much more information they would need if their task were to describe the country or simply evaluate it. More information was sought if the information was insufficient, inconsistent, or unfavorable, or if the task was to describe the country. As hypothesized, combinations of stimulus uncertainty and response importance were multiplicative, whereas combinations of 2 stimulus uncertainty variables (amount and consistency) or 2 response importance variables (task and favorability) were only additive. (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)