Teen Expectations for Significant Life Events

An adolescent's ability to make effective decisions requires that he or she be able to accurately assess the probability that uncertain events will occur. This ability is referred to as risk perception, a skill that plays an important role in psychological theories of adolescent behavior &...

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Published inPublic opinion quarterly Vol. 64; no. 2; pp. 189 - 205
Main Authors FISCHHOFF, BARUCH, PARKER, ANDREW M., BRUIN, WÄNDI BRUINE DE, DOWNS, JULIE, PALMGREN, CLAIRE, DAWES, ROBYN, MANSKI, CHARLES F.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Oxford University Press 01.07.2000
University of Chicago Press
Public Opinion Quarterly, Inc
Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
Subjects
Adolescents
Age
Attitudes
Bachelors degrees
Crime victims
Criminal arrests
Criminal statistics
Decision Making
Employment
Estimates
Expectation
Fertility
Health care statistics
Hispanics
Jails
Life Events
Mortality
Probabilities
Probability
Public health
Research Note
Risk
Social Perception
Statistical analysis
Studies
Teenagers
U.S.A
Uncertainty
Youth
United States > US
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Summary:An adolescent's ability to make effective decisions requires that he or she be able to accurately assess the probability that uncertain events will occur. This ability is referred to as risk perception, a skill that plays an important role in psychological theories of adolescent behavior & human capital formation. The risk perceptions of 3,544 adolescent respondents to the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth are reported. Seventeen questions -- ranging from will you get the flu sometime in the next year, to will you die from any cause in the next year -- are analyzed. The teens are reported to have, for the most part, realistic ideas about how the life events in question will affect them. They also view themselves as being relatively in control of their lives. A disproportionate number, however, are of the opinion that the world is out of control, & that they will die in the near future. It is posited, therefore, that teens' risky behavior can be linked to the fact that many think they are going to die, regardless of the choices they make. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 2 Appendixes, 21 References. K. A. Larsen
Bibliography:ark:/67375/HXZ-C37QXPXJ-4
PII:0033-362X
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ObjectType-Feature-1
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ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:0033-362X
1537-5331
DOI:10.1086/317762