Many cancers are linked to varying degrees with common lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking and diet, and are therefore partially preventable. Building on existing risk perception literature, this article uses the case of red meat consumption to examine the effect of people’s attitudes and attitude ambivalence on health risk perceptions where there is some uncertainty about the risk. Data was obtained from an opportunity sample of community-dwelling adults (n = 167) using an online survey. The survey included information from a recent press release on the cancer risk associated with red meat consumption (‘probably carcinogenic’) as well as measures of attitude to red meat, attitude ambivalence, ambiguity aversion, information evaluation and acceptance of cancer risk. Participants who were more inclined to accept the risk of cancer linked to red meat tended to have a more negative attitude to red meat, higher attitude ambivalence, more favourable evaluation of the information provided, lower ambiguity aversion and lower red meat consumption; they also tended to be of older age. Attitude was a weaker predictor of risk perception among participants who were highly ambivalent. This, coupled with the finding that people with an ambivalent attitude to red meat evaluated the risk information more favourably and were more convinced that red meat can cause cancer, suggests that attitude ambivalence may play a more important role in risk perception than previously thought. These findings are discussed in the context of strategies for dealing with risk when drawing on rational and non-rational logics of handling evidence.

许多癌症与常见的生活方式因素（例如吸烟，饮酒和饮食）在不同程度上有关联，因此可以部分预防。本文以现有的风险感知文献为基础，以食用红肉的情况为例，研究了人们的态度和态度矛盾情绪对健康风险感知的影响，其中风险存在一定的不确定性。数据来自社区居民的机会样本（n = 167）使用在线调查。该调查包括最近新闻稿中有关食用红肉（“可能致癌”）的癌症风险以及对红肉态度，态度歧义，歧义厌恶，信息评估和癌症风险接受度的信息。倾向于接受与红肉有关的癌症风险的参与者倾向于对红肉持较消极的态度，态度较模糊，对所提供的信息更满意，对歧义的厌恶程度较低，并且红肉的消耗较低；他们也往往年龄较大。在高度矛盾的参与者中，态度对风险感知的预测较弱。这个，加上对红肉态度不一的人对风险信息的评价更佳，并且更相信红肉会致癌，这一发现表明，态度二心不齐可能在风险感知中比以前认为的更为重要。当利用处理证据的理性和非理性逻辑时，将在处理风险的策略中讨论这些发现。