Attitudes toward health risks and sunbathing behavior.
Sunbathing confers the benefits of looking and feeling good but presents the long-term risk of skin cancer. In a disguised experiment exploring attitudes toward sunbathing by British adults, participants were asked to rate their willingness to take a hypothetical new drug (with different levels of risk) that would make them look and feel good. One aspect of the resulting risk profiles was significantly related to a positive attitude to open-air sunbathing but not to sunbed use, possibly because it was erroneously thought that using a sunbed is not risky. The well-established finding that women are more cautious was confirmed; the risk function for men was curvilinear, in contrast to women, who were willing to increase their risk linearly over their lifetime.
Beech
J R
JR
Psychology Department, University of Leicester, England.
Sheehan
E
E
Barraclough
S
S
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006370:Heliotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012737:Sex Factors; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*