Supporting Health and Medical Decision Making: Findings and Insights from Fuzzy-Trace Theory.

HIGHLIGHTS: Fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) supports practical approaches to improving health and medicine.FTT differs in important respects from other theories of decision making, which has implications for how to help patients, providers, and health communicators.Gist mental representations emphasize categorical distinctions, reflect understanding in context, and help cue values relevant to health and patient care.Understanding the science behind theory is crucial for evidence-based medicine.

Decision making in adolescence and early adulthood

Adolescence and early adulthood are marked by elevated levels of risk taking, particularly in domains related to public health. The decision of some college-aged individuals to follow through with spring break travel plans during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic provides a current example of such behavior. Models of risky decision making explain why this might be the case. This chapter reviews these and other factors that influence decision making in adolescents and young adults. Because real-world decision making involves multiple confounded factors, the chapter argues that it is critical to examine distinct features of decision making in the laboratory to understand real-world behavior. It begins by discussing why adolescents behave the way they do-theory-followed by major factors in decision making: ambiguity, time, risk, and reward. The chapter also discusses what commonly used tasks measure, draws connections to real-world examples of risk taking, and highlights areas for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Viruses, Vaccines, and COVID-19: Explaining and Improving Risky Decision-making.

Risky decision-making lies at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic and will determine future viral outbreaks. Therefore, a critical evaluation of major explanations of such decision-making is of acute practical importance. We review the underlying mechanisms and predictions offered by expectancy-value and dual-process theories. We then highlight how fuzzy-trace theory builds on these approaches and provides further insight into how knowledge, emotions, values, and metacognitive inhibition influence risky decision-making through its unique mental representational architecture (i.e., parallel verbatim and gist representations of information). We discuss how social values relate to decision-making according to fuzzy-trace theory, including how categorical gist representations cue core values. Although gist often supports health-promoting behaviors such as vaccination, social distancing, and mask-wearing, why this is not always the case as with status-quo gist is explained, and suggestions are offered for how to overcome the "battle for the gist" as it plays out in social media.

Misconceptions, misinformation, and moving forward in theories of COVID-19 risky behaviors

Reply by the current authors to the comments made by Baruch Fischhoff (see record 2022-15515-002), Stephen B. Broomell and Gretchen B. Chapman (see record 2022-15515-003), Kathleen Hall Jamieson (see record 2022-15515-004), Dietram A. Scheufele et al. (see record 2022-15515-005), Christopher R. Wolfe (see record 2022-15515-006) and Valerie A. Thompson et al. (see record 2022-15515-007) on the original article (see record 2022-15515-001). Imagine gathering together the most thoughtful scholars spanning the behavioral sciences to address the conceptual frontier as it pertains to human behavior and COVID-19, including risk communication, prevention, and vaccination. Imagine that this group had vast experience in understanding the mechanisms underlying behavior and in applying this understanding in policy and practice. Collectively, they summarize key concepts that can be applied in programs to combat COVID-19 and provide a blueprint for future research. A theme of these articles is that integrative interdisciplinary work is required to address this massive public health problem. Many highlight how fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) accomplishes this goal by weaving together cognitive, social, emotional, and neuroscientific constructs to explain multiply determined decisions that involve risk, applying falsifiable models. Others encourage looking beyond cognition, and they raise questions about the efficacy of current behavioral theories, including FTT, and whether FTT should be combined with dual-process approaches to achieve greater explanatory and predictive power. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Of Viruses, Vaccines, and Variability: Qualitative Meaning Matters.

Deaths from COVID-19 depend on millions of people understanding risk and translating this understanding into risk-reduction behaviors. Although numerical information about risk is helpful, numbers are surprisingly ambiguous, and there are predictable mismatches in risk perception between laypeople and experts. Hence, risk communication should convey the qualitative, contextualized meaning of risk.