Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Effects of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

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

Research output not available from this repository, contact author.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611432177

Request Changes to record.

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:
DateEvent
2012Published
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

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us