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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
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 Fear Factor
Psychology/ Suzanne Thompson
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 repellent? 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 measures 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 protective
action.
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
that 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 all warnings
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 longterm
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 College. 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 coauthors
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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