1/8/2023 0 Comments Risk perception definitionMoreover, risk perceptions are influenced by what information is most salient or available to an individual. For example, enactment of precautionary behavior results in subsequent, appropriate reductions in risk perception, and engaging in risky behaviors is associated with appropriately higher risk perceptions. However, evidence suggests that risk perceptions are reflective of not only numeric information, but also information regarding personal experiences. Indeed, evidence shows that individuals who are highly numerate are more likely to retrieve and use numerical principles in decision-making, rendering them less susceptible to biases related to risk perception and decision-making, and less likely to incorporate irrelevant information into risk perceptions. Given that risk perceptions involve incorporating numeric information about a threat, the ability to produce, understand, and use numeric information plays an important role in the formation and use of risk perceptions. For example, individuals high in dispositional optimism who also have optimistic risk perceptions regarding a looming threat may be more likely to minimize the threat’s severity and less likely to seek additional health information. Moreover, several studies suggest that dispositional and domain-specific optimism may interact in ways with important implications for health. Indeed, evidence suggests that, in the general population, individuals are able to differentiate among specific threats when forming risk perceptions. Although risk perceptions can be optimistic (i.e., low) or pessimistic (i.e., high), they are empirically and conceptually distinct from general dispositional optimism, in part because they are domain-specific. Ī growing body of literature has probed how risk perceptions are formed. For example, prospective evidence demonstrates that, among individuals with high cancer risk perceptions, subsequent cancer diagnosis is associated with poorer well-being however, among those with low cancer risk perceptions, subsequent cancer diagnosis is unrelated to well-being. Risk perceptions may also have implications for overall well-being as threats unfold. A recent meta-analysis of experimental evidence supports the role of risk perceptions in health decision-making when interventions successfully change risk perceptions, health behavior change often results. ![]() ![]() Theory-guided health behavior change interventions and health communications often target risk perceptions toward the end of changing health behaviors. Correlational evidence supports an at-least-modest association between risk perceptions and health behaviors. ![]() Motivation to forgo such pleasurable behaviors, or engage in inconvenient preventive behaviors, is believed to be driven to some extent by beliefs about the probability that a health consequence will occur. Behaviors contributing to disease initiation and progression are often pleasurable (e.g., smoking or overeating). In health decision-making, individuals are expected to navigate choices involving weighing risk for consequences with benefits of action.
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