Research Focus

Broadly, our lab's overarching research goals are to understand:

1) How people think about their risk of disease and uncertain outcomes and when and why these beliefs predict behavior

2) Defensive responses to threatening health information

3) Mechanisms underlying engagement in health behaviors

In general, we apply social psychological theory to a variety of health contexts (e.g., health information avoidance, physical activity promotion, interpretation of numeric risk information).

Research topics

*This represents a subset of ongoing and prior research in this lab.

Defensive Reactions to Threatening Health Information

Health information can be threatening and people use many defensive strategies to cope with threatening information. Self-affirmation, in which people focus on their strengths and values, can reduce defensive responses to threat. We are exploring ways in which self-affirmation can promote adaptive outcomes in health contexts.

Selected publications:

Taber, J.M., McQueen, A. Simonovic, N., Waters, E.A. (2019). Adapting a self-affirmation intervention for use in a mobile application: Smokers who self-affirm report greater intentions to smoke. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 42(6), 1050-1061.
Taber, J.M., Klein, W.M.P., Persky, S., Ferrer, R.A., Kaufman, A.R., Thai, C.L., Harris, P.R. (2017). Interest in and Reactions to Genetic Risk Information: A Role for Implicit Theories and Self-Affirmation. Social Science & Medicine, 190, 101-110.
Taber, J.M., Klein, W.M.P., Ferrer, R.A., Augustson, E, & Patrick, H. (2016). A pilot test of self-affirmations to promote smoking cessation in a national smoking cessation text messaging program. JMIR mHealth & uHealth, 4(2), e71.
Emanuel, A.S., Howell, J.L., Taber, J.M., Ferrer, R.A., Klein, W.M.P., & Harris, P.R. (2018). Spontaneous self-affirmation is associated with psychological well-being: Evidence from a U.S. national adult survey sample. Journal of Health Psychology, 23(1), 95-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105316643595
Taber, J.M., Klein, W.M.P., Ferrer, R.A., Kent, E.E., & Harris, P.R. (2016). Optimism and spontaneous self-affirmation are associated with lower likelihood of cognitive impairment and greater positive affect among cancer survivors. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 50(2), 198-209. https://doi.org/10.1007/S12160-015-9745-9
Taber, J.M., Howell, J.L., Emanuel, A.S., Klein, W.M.P, Ferrer, R.A., & Harris, P.R. (2016). Associations of spontaneous self-affirmation with health care experiences and health information seeking in national survey of US adults. Psychology & Health, 31(3), 292-309.

Avoiding potentially useful but threatening health information is another way that people might engage in defensiveness. Our lab is exploring why people avoid health information and when this behavior might be defensive or not. A related (but distinct) area of interest is understanding why people avoid seeking medical care.

Selected publications:

O’Brien, A.G., Foust. J.L., & Taber, J.M. (accepted). Physical Health Mindsets and Information Avoidance. Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
O’Brien, A.G., Meese, W.B., Taber, J.M., Johnson, A.E., Hinojosa, B.M., Burton, R., Ranjan, S., Rodarte, E.D., Coward, C., Howell, J.L. (2024). Why do people avoid health risk information? A Qualitative Analysis. SSM – Qualitative Research in Health, 6, 100461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2024.100461
Foust, J.L., & Taber, J.M. (2024). Injunctive social norms and perceived message tailoring are associated with health information seeking. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 47(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-023-00413-x
Foust, J.L. & Taber, J.M. (2023) Information avoidance: Past perspectives and future directions. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Advance online publication, October 11, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231197668
Taber, J.M., Leyva, B., & Persoskie, A. (2015). Why do people avoid medical care?: A qualitative study using national data. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 30(3), 290-297. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11606-014-3089-1

Disease Risk Beliefs

Measuring how people think about their risk of disease is complicated and substantial research has been devoted to learning how best to measure these beliefs. We examine the predictive validity of various types of risk beliefs, including cognitive, affective, and experiential, as well as perceived severity and worry about disease.

Selected publications:

Cheng, I.*, Taber, J.M., Simonovic, N., Coifman, K.G., Sidney, P.G., Was, C.A., & Thompson, C.A. (2023). The Associations of Cultural Worldviews, Political Orientation, and Trust with COVID-19 Risk Beliefs in the U.S. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 17(11), e12867. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12867
Taber, J.M., Aspinwall, L.G., Drummond, D. Stump, T.K., Kohlmann, W., & Leachman, S.A. (2020). Priority of risk (but not perceived magnitude of risk) predicts improved sun-protection behavior following melanoma genetic counseling. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 55(1), 24-40. https://doi.org/10.1093/ABM/KAAA028
Ellis, E.M., Ferrer, R.A., Taber, J.M., & Klein, W.M.P. (2018). Relationship of “don’t know” responses to cancer knowledge and belief questions with colorectal cancer screening behavior, Health Psychology, 37(4), 394-398. https://doi.org/10.1037/HEA0000587
Taber, J.M. & Klein, W.M.P. (2016). The role of conviction in personal risk perceptions: What can we learn from research on attitude certainty? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 10(4), 202-218. https://doi.org/10.1111/SPC3.12244
Taber, J.M., Klein, W.M.P., Ferrer, R.A., Biesecker, B.B., Lewis, K.L., & Biesecker, L.G. (2015). Dispositional optimism and perceived risk interact to predict intentions to learn genome sequencing results. Health Psychology, 34(7), 718-728. https://doi.org/10.1037/HEA0000159

Numeracy and Health Decision Making

Disease risk information is often presented in the form of rational numbers, such as 76%, ¼, or 2 in 8 likelihood of developing disease. Dr. Taber collaborates with mathematical cognition researchers Dr. Clarissa Thompson (Kent State University) and Dr. Pooja Sidney (University of Kentucky), to examine how people interpret and understand numeric information. We have found that adults’ attitudes about numeric information are differentiated by specific types of numbers: they have more positive attitudes about whole numbers and percentages than fractions. We have conducted research to examine individual differences involved in errors people make when interpreting numeric information during health decision-making. As personalized risk information becomes increasingly available with the advent of precision medicine, there is a need to ensure that people are accurately interpreting numeric health information to optimize their health.

Selected publications:

Fitzsimmons, C.J., Woodbury, L., Taber, J.M., Schiller, L., Mielicki, M., Sidney, P.G., Coifman, K.G., & Thompson, C.A. (2023). Visual display size and shape impact the accuracy of health-risk estimates. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 36(5), e2341. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2341
Mielicki, M.K., Fitzsimmons, C.J., Schiller, L.K., Scheibe, D., Taber, J.M., Sidney, P.G., Coifman, K.G, Matthews, P.G., Waters, E.A., & Thompson, C.A. (2023). Number lines can be more effective at facilitating adults’ performance on health-related ratio problems than risk ladders and icon arrays. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 29(3), 529-543. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000456
Thompson, C.A., Mielicki, M.K., Rivera, F., Fitzsimmons, C.J., Scheibe, D.A., Sidney, P.G., Taber, J.M., & Waters, E.A. (2023). Leveraging Math Cognition to Combat Health Innumeracy. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(1), 152-177. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221083277
Thompson, C.A., Taber, J.M., Sidney, P.G., Fitzsimmons, C.J., Mielicki, M.K., Matthews, P.G., Schemmel, E. A., Simonovic, N., Foust, J.L., Aurora, P., Disabato, D.J., Seah, T.H.S., Schiller, L. & Coifman, K.G. (2021). Math matters: A novel, brief educational intervention decreases whole number bias when reasoning about COVID-19. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27(4), 632–656. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000403.
Choi, S., Taber, J.M., Thompson, C.A., Sidney, P.G. (2020). Math anxiety, but not induced stress, is associated with objective numeracy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 26(4), 604-619. https://doi.org/10.1037/XAP0000268

Ambiguity and Uncertainty

Ambiguity and uncertainty are inherent in risk information and widespread in health contexts. Our lab seeks to understand how people respond to ambiguity and how to promote adaptive responses to such information.

Selected publications:

Simonovic, N., Taber, J. M., Scherr, C.L., Dean, M. Hua, J., Howell, J.L., Chaudhry, B.M., Wain, K.E., & Politi, M. (2023). Uncertainty in healthcare and health decision making: Five methodological and conceptual research recommendations from an interdisciplinary team. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 46(4), 541-555. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-022-00384-5
Simonovic, N. & Taber, J.M. (2022). Psychological Impact of Ambiguous Health Messages about COVID-19. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 45(2), 159-171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-021-00266-2
Simonovic, N., Taber, J.M., Ferrer, R.A., Klein, W.M.P. (2020). Evidence that perceptions of and tolerance for medical ambiguity are distinct constructs: An analysis of nationally representative U.S. data. Health Expectations, 23(3), 603-613. https://doi.org/10.1111/HEX.13037