Chapter 4 (Kimmerle et al., 2017) investigates the use of informational environments in lifelong, informal contexts, particularly in the way that people seek and process health-related information on the Internet. Similar to Chap. 2, it highlights individual factors that impact information use. In particular, the chapter reports on studies showing how information use is influenced by conceptual knowledge that people have about health (biomedical vs. biopsychosocial health concept). The impact of epistemological beliefs (conceptual knowledge about knowledge and knowing) and the impact of prior opinions is also discussed in this chapter. Finally, Chap. 3 covers how far information seeking and information use of individuals is shaped by affective variables (mild vs. severe health threats). All of these individual factors lead to certain biases in information use, thus underscoring the general notion that humans are motivated information processors.

Searching for and dealing with health-related information on the Internet is a self-regulated process. Accordingly, how health-related information is selected, perceived, and produced by individuals in online informational environments may be affected by people´s motivation. In this chapter, we examine how motivated information processing influences how people deal with health-related information online. After a general introduction to the topic, the chapter deals with two aspects of the role of motivated processing of health-related information: On the one hand, people´s motivation is fueled by particular concepts that they hold about health in general, about health-related knowledge, and about specific health topics. Accordingly, we analyze in the first part of the chapter how people´s individual health concepts influence their information processing, discuss the impact of people´s health-related epistemological beliefs, and examine in what way their previous opinions of a health-related topic affect how they handle information. On the other hand, people´s motivations in information processing are related to their emotions. Thus, we discuss in the second part of the chapter how health-related information on the Internet can be a source of fear for laypeople and how patients who have received a medical diagnosis process information in order to cope with the threat they experience from their illness. In our presentation of research results we also analyze how people´s motivated information processing interacts with characteristics of the information they encounter in online environments. Finally, we sum up our findings and point out implications for future research and practical applications.