Kwan, V. S. Y., Wojcik, S. P., Miron-shatz, T., Votruba, A. M. and Olivola, Christopher Yves (2012) Effects of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk. Psychological Science, Vol.23 (No.4). pp. 381-385. doi:10.1177/0956797611432177

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Abstract

People are quick to perceive meaningful patterns in the co-occurrence of events. We report two studies exploring the effects of streaks in symptom checklists on perceived personal disease risk. In the context of these studies, a streak is a sequence of consecutive items on a list that share the characteristic of being either general or specific. We identify a psychological mechanism underlying the effect of streaks in a list of symptoms and show that the effect of streaks on perceived risk varies with the length of the symptom list. Our findings reveal a tendency to infer meaning from streaks in medical and health decision making. Participants perceived a higher personal risk of having an illness when presented with a checklist in which common symptoms were grouped together than when presented with a checklist in which these same symptoms were separated by rare symptoms. This research demonstrates that something as arbitrary as the order in which symptoms are presented in a checklist can affect perceived risk of disease.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Behavioural Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School
Journal or Publication Title:	Psychological Science
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
ISSN:	0956-7976
Official Date:	2012
Dates:	Date Event 2012 Published
Volume:	Vol.23
Number:	No.4
Page Range:	pp. 381-385
DOI:	10.1177/0956797611432177
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access

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