Outcomes of Information Seeking and Avoidance Behaviors: Insights from a German Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Examining information behaviors is often justified by their consequences but theoretical models of information behaviors have focused on antecedents of seeking and avoidance rather than their outcomes. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences of information-seeking and avoidance behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a secondary analysis of a four-wave online survey of a sample of German residents (n = 492), we conducted hybrid models allowing us to differentiate between within-person effects of information behaviors on the outcomes and between-person correlations between information behaviors and outcomes. The findings revealed only single and small effects of information behaviors. Cognitive consequences such as risk perceptions were influenced by information seeking, whereas information seeking and avoidance affected individuals’ subjective but not their objective level of knowledge. Neither information seeking nor avoidance impacted affective responses or a variety of behavioral consequences. These results contrast with assumptions that information seeking is per se a desirable health outcome, whereas information avoidance might be a barrier to health prevention and pandemic containment. At least in times of a health crisis, the findings suggest that information behavior might not be the central determinant of various affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes.