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Effects of symptom presentation order on perceived disease risk
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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 ISSN 0956-7976.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611432177
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 | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Behavioural Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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Journal or Publication Title: | Psychological Science | ||||
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. | ||||
ISSN: | 0956-7976 | ||||
Official Date: | 2012 | ||||
Dates: |
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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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