Boundedly rational patients? Part 1: Health and patient mistakes in a behavioral framework

Ada C. Stefanescu Schmidt, Ami B. Bhatt and Cass R. Sunstein ()
Additional contact information
Ada C. Stefanescu Schmidt: Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Ami B. Bhatt: Outpatient Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor at Harvard Medical School
Cass R. Sunstein: Robert Walmsley University, Professor at Harvard University

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2017, vol. 1, issue 2, 11-15

Abstract: During medical visits, the stakes are high for many patients, who are put in a position to make, or to begin to make, important health-related decisions. But in such visits, patients often make cognitive errors. Traditionally, those errors are thought to result from poor communication with physicians; complicated subject matter; and patient anxiety. To date, measures to improve patient understanding and recall have had only modest effects. This paper reviews the current literature on behavioral insights in the patient experience and argues that an understanding of those cognitive errors can be improved by reference to a behavioral science framework, which distinguishes between a "System 1" mindset, in which patients are reliant on intuition and vulnerable to biases and imperfectly reliable heuristics, and a "System 2" mindset, which is reflective, slow, deliberative, and detailed-oriented.

Keywords: System 1 and System 2; cognitive errors; patient-reported outcomes measures; heuristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D83 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://sabeconomics.org/journal/RePEc/beh/JBEPv1/articles/JBEP-1-2-2.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:1:y:2017:i:2:p:11-15

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy is currently edited by Michelle Baddeley

More articles in Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy from Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SABE ().