Developing and testing a heuristic-systematic model of health decision making: the role of affect, trust, confidence and media influence

2015-07-23This project aims to extend major socio-psychological theories of health behavior change to take into account the more intuitive, heuristic and affect-laden route of decision making. Despite extensive research showing that human beings tend to perceive the world and make judgments based on two different and interacting routes of information processing, established health behavior theories have focused on the systematic route at the expense of the heuristic route. Based on a review of literature from the fields of communication, psychology, sociology and risk management, this research identifies integral affect, social trust, social confidence, and media influence as important forces that shape the heuristic, and often also the systematic, process of health decision making. ❧ An extended, dual-process model of health decision making is subsequently proposed. In order to test this model, data were collected from a national probability sample of adults living in the United States regarding their decisions to vaccinate against three flus (i.e. seasonal influenza, the H1N1 swine flu and the H5N1 bird flu). The results suggest that integral affect, social trust and social confidence are powerful predictors of vaccination decisions, influencing intention or behavior not only directly and but also indirectly by coloring individuals’ beliefs regarding vaccine and in the case of integral affect, also their perceptions regarding the vaccine-preventable flu. The analysis also indicates considerable media influence over individuals’ health perceptions and decisions. However, it is active attention to health content in the media rather than passive exposure that seems to function as the primary mechanism behind these media effects