Attitudes About Health Affect How Older Adults Engage With Negative Health News

A study conducted by North Carolina State University researchers concluded that one way to convince senior men and women to pay attention to important health information is to preface it with the good news about their health, reports ScienceDaily . "There's a lot of research showing that older adults prefer positive information, often avoiding or ignoring negative information," says Tom Hess, a professor of psychology at the university and co-author of a paper on the new findings. "That can have consequences for older adults, particularly when it comes to information regarding their health. We wanted to see if there was a way to overcome this positivity bias when it comes to health news." Study participants who completed a "positive" health checklist read more than 50 percent more of the articles that had negative headlines, as compared to participants who completed the "negative" checklist. "These findings have practical value in terms of how we share negative information with older adults regarding their health," Hess says. "For example, it may be useful for a health care provider to say 'here's what looks good' before talking to someone about recommendations regarding diet or exercise."