Risk Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2003 Trust in Risky Messages: The Role of Prior Attitudes Mathew P. White, 1* Sabine Pahl, 1 Marc Buehner, 2 and Andres Haye 1 Risk perception researchers have observed a “negativity bias” for hazard-related information. Messages indicating the presence of risk seem to be trusted more than messages indicating the absence of risk, and risk perceptions seem more affected by negative than positive infor- mation. Two experiments were conducted to examine alternative explanations of this finding within the area of food additives. Study 1 (N = 235) extended earlier work by (a) unconfound- ing message valence (positive or negative) from message extremity (definite or null finding) and (b) exploring the role of prior attitudes. Results suggested that negative/risky messages were indeed trusted more even when extremity was taken into account. However, prior atti- tudes significantly moderated the effect of message valence on trust. Positive messages were distrusted only by those with negative prior attitudes. Study 2 (N = 252), further explored the role of prior attitudes and extended the work by examining reactions to risky messages about a positively viewed additive—a vitamin. The results again found a moderating effect of prior attitudes on message valence. Participants had greater confidence in messages that were more congruent with their prior attitudes, irrespective of valence. Furthermore, positive messages had a greater impact on risk perception than negative messages. These findings suggest that greater trust in negative messages about hazards may be a product of a “confirmatory” rather than a “negativity” bias. KEY WORDS: Confirmatory bias; food additives; negativity bias; trust 1. INTRODUCTION Recent research in the field of risk perception has reported a “negativity bias” for risk-related in- formation. Specifically, “negative” messages suggest- ing the presence of risk are said to be trusted more and to have a greater impact upon risk percep- tions than “positive” messages suggesting the ab- sence of risk. (1,2) These findings appear related to observations of a “negativity bias” (3,4) in a range of other psychological processes including attention, (5) 1 Department of Psychology, Western Bank, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK. 2 Department of Psychology, University of Cardiff, Cardiff, UK. ∗ Address correspondence to Mathew P. White, Centre for Research in Social Attitudes, Department of Psychology, Western Bank, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK. learning, (6) decision making, (7) and impression for- mation. (8) Explanations for such a bias have in- cluded the relative preferences of avoiding losses compared to achieving gains, (9) the greater cate- gory diagnosticity of negatively valued information for survival purposes, (10) and the possibility that neg- ative entities are more “contagious” than positive ones. (3) However, despite strong evidence for a negativ- ity bias in many areas, findings reported in the domain of risk perception (1,2) remain open to a number of al- ternative explanations. The present article reports re- sults from two studies designed to replicate previous approaches but at the same time extend them in or- der to explore these alternative possibilities. Since the current research builds largely on work reported by Siegrist and Cvetkovich, (2) we begin with an overview of their earlier research. 717 0272-4332/03/1200-0717$22.00/1 C  2003 Society for Risk Analysis