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October/November 2007
Fear Factor
Psychology Professor Suzanne Thompson studies the many ways we
respond to risk.
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By Mary Marvin
You’re planning to go on a hike when you hear a news report about
scattered cases of West Nile virus in the area. Do you still head out to
the woods, but make sure to wear long pants and apply mosquito
repellant? Figure the risk is so small that you don’t need to be
concerned? Cancel your plans and avoid any chance of exposure? Or, turn
off the news and ignore the report?
 Psychology
Professor Suzanne Thompson has been studying reactions to “delayed
consequence threats” like the West Nile virus for the past three years.
“We’re constantly bombarded by messages about precautions we need to
take now to avoid consequences later on—using sunscreen to prevent skin
cancer or protecting ourselves from mosquitoes or taking precautions to
prevent identity theft,” she says. “We have to decide if we’re going to
pay attention and how much effort we’re going to put into protection.”
Thompson and her research team have conducted several studies, including
two national samples of about 1,500 adults. A recent survey of Claremont
Colleges students identified four threats and asked participants to rate
things like susceptibility and intentions to take protection. What the
researchers have discovered is that delayed consequence threats can
provoke four responses, which they have identified as control-based,
optimistic-denial, heightened-sensitivity and avoidance-denial.
“People who are control-based take warnings seriously and will gather
information about what can be done, and if it seems reasonable to do
something, they’ll go ahead and do it,” says Thompson, who received
National Science Foundation funding for the project in 2006. “Optimistic
deniers can be described as the ‘it can’t happen to me’ group. If the
circumstances are such they can’t avoid it, they will take action, but
it’s not the first approach. Then there are people (heightened
sensitivity) who overact and try to protect themselves against threats
they may not realistically be at risk for. Health professionals call
them the ‘worried well’ because they get anxious about every little
symptom and may overuse medical treatment. The avoiders realize they
might be at risk but don’t think there’s much they can do about it, so
they simply try to ignore the information.”
 Each
response can be tempered by a number of factors. A family history of
cholesterol or heart disease would make warnings about possible health
problems harder to ignore. And sometimes, says Thompson, the healthiest
choice may be to not respond. “You can imagine a situation where it’s
better to be an optimistic denier. We can’t respond to every warning and
take them all seriously. If there’s nothing you can do, maybe you are
better off thinking it can’t happen to you.”
Thompson’s research into delayed threats has its roots in work she began
a year after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “I started out
looking at long-term reactions to 9/11. I was interested in the effects
on people who had seen it on television or had read about it but didn’t
have a direct connection to the attacks.”
After conducting 500 interviews, she was struck by how varied the
responses were. “Some people felt it was a one-time event and that they
were invulnerable. On the other end of the spectrum, there were people
who still felt quite stressed and anxious and refused to fly. I started
thinking about how much of the research on how people respond to threats
didn’t take these individual differences into account.”
Thompson, whose other research interests include perceived control and
illusions of control, works with a team of undergraduate and graduate
students at the Social Research Center on campus. “Most of the
undergraduates are from Pomona. We talk about the research process in
class and then they get a more personal hands-on experience at the
center. The undergrads here are so good that they regularly make major
contributions to the group.” The Pomona students are among 11 co-authors
of a paper on illusions of control that will be published this fall in
Basic and Applied Psychology.
Results from the current research on delayed consequence threats could
have a practical application in the way warnings are tailored to the
public, says Thompson. “The point isn’t to try to push everyone to do
more, but to understand the range of reactions and what’s going to be
good and what isn’t. The hopeful part is that given the right
circumstances and the right information presented in the right way,
people will have a reasonable response.”
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