Cognitive biases in preventive health decisions of adolescents

Pages: 1005-1011
Samyukta Kumar and Ramya Maheswari, M. (Department of Psychology, Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai, Tamil Nadu)

The number of cases of obesity, sleep and stress related disorders in adolescents are on the rise. These problems can be avoided if correct preventive measures are taken. There is limited research conducted in the area of cognitive biases in preventive health actions. Hence, the present study aimed to explore if cognitive biases operate when adolescents try to make decisions with respect to preventive health. Based on the review of literature, cognitive biases namely framing effect, optimism bias, anchoring bias and sunk-cost bias were examined to see if they operate when adolescent’s were made to think of their decisions regarding five preventive health actions namely dietary behaviors, physical activity, stress management, sleep patterns and health screening. A questionnaire consisting of hypothetical questions was constructed by overlaying the biases with respect to each of these health behaviors to study if it did impact their decisions. A pilot study was conducted with 20 participants to see if the questionnaire tested what it was intended to test. After making changes based on the feedback received with reference to clarity, this self constructed questionnaire was finally administered to 80 adolescents and the results were analyzed using percentage analysis. Results showed that the biases tested by the questionnaire did impact the decisions made by the adolescents.