SKIN-CANCER - ASSESSING PERCEIVED RISK AND BEHAVIORAL ATTITUDES

Measures of attitude concerning exposure to the sun, and judgements of risk and other beliefs concerning skin cancer and four other problems (stomach cancer, deafness, AIDS and sunstroke) were obtained from a q uestionnaire completed by 176 university students. Subjects also estim ated the incidence of each problem using one of three response formats . The highest incidence estimates were obtained when subjects were ask ed to guess at an absolute number, and the lowest when they used a sca le which differentiated between lower frequencies, while grouping high er frequencies into a single response category. The effect of the resp onse scale format, however, did not generalize to other ratings of per sonal risk. Subjects' ratings of their personal risk, compared with th eir peers, showed an optimistic bias over the five problems as a whole , particularly for AIDS, but not reliably so in the case of skin cance r. Optimism was inversely related to the amount of thought given to ea ch problem. Men and women did not differ overall in their optimism reg arding their own risk of skin cancer. However, differences as a functi on of gender and optimism were found on various behavioural attitudes. The results are discussed in relation to a tendency of disregard base -rates in subjective risk judgements, unrealistic optimism, and implic ations for health education.