from Ohio State University
How can we get people to do the things they know they should do, but don’t? In our culture, there is a very long list fitting that category. In this case, however, this issue is tanning. Ohio State University researchers enlisted more than five hundred young women to try to find out why we tend to ignore information we don’t want to hear. The message, “there is no such thing as a healthy tan” has been around for decades, but sunbathing or tanning beds are still popular in certain age groups. The young women who read the message with low language difficulty and high relevance that skin cancer was a severe risk, indicated they would not soak up rays in the future. The key, researchers say, may be to put greater effort into how information is presented.