Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2005 Jul-Aug;30(5):425-35.
doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsi066. Epub 2005 Feb 23.

Predictors of children's and adolescents' risk perception

Leilani Greening  1 , Laura Stoppelbein, C C Chandler, T David Elkin
Affiliations

Predictors of children's and adolescents' risk perception

Leilani Greening et al. J Pediatr Psychol. 2005 Jul-Aug.

Abstract

Objective: To test cognitive-developmental, social-cognitive, motivational, and cognitive hypotheses about the psychological mechanisms underlying children's risk perception.

Method: Youth (N = 1315) ranging from 9 to 17 years of age completed measures assessing adolescent egocentrism, personal experience with four negative health events, how much they worried about the health events, and their perceived skill for event-related activities. The measures were completed twice, 12 months apart.

Results: Lacking personal experience with and worrying less about health threats were significant predictors of more optimistically biased risk perception a year later.

Conclusions: The lack of experience with and not worrying about serious health consequences may desensitize children to potential health risks. Clinical applications for health education programs are discussed.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources