Threatened individuals prefer positive Internet search: An experimental laboratory study

The main source for information search being the internet is increasingly used in the health domain. An experimental laboratory study by Hannah Greving and Kai Sassenberg in Germany illustrates that threatened individuals prefer positive information during the process of Internet search and counter-regulate their negative affective state. It demonstrates that threatened individuals allocate more attention to positive information (i.e., they select more positive links and scan positive web pages longer) and, thereby, also recall more positive information than non-threatened individuals. Thus, affective states such as threat influence the Internet search process and should be taken more into account in future research.

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of threat on the Internet search process.

The study tested the hypothesis that threatened individuals select more positive links and scan positive web pages longer than challenged individuals and individuals in a neutral state. Further, the hypothesis extended to include that, because threatened individuals select more positive links and scan positive web pages longer, they recall more positive information than individuals in both control conditions. These hypotheses were tested in a study in which the research manipulated threat and then asked participants to complete an Internet search task. This task was completely preprogrammed but designed in a way to make it appear as if it were a usual Internet search surface. Thereby, participants' behaviors during the search task resembled actual searching behavior, but, due to the programming, researchers could nonetheless assess it precisely.