Many studies have investigated how individual factors, message factors, and combinations of individual and message factors influence choice of information processing strategy. This commentary probes a complex contemporary personal and policy issue to illustrate the drawbacks of relying on subjects’ self-reports of reasoning strategy, or the conclusions of subjects’ decision-making processes, to distinguish between heuristic and systematic information processing. Moreover, it argues that to reach their audiences effectively, science communicators need both a sophisticated understanding of the tradeoffs in the science and health issues they cover, and a knowledge of the commonly used heuristics that influence individuals’ costs-benefits analyses.
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