Perceived risk and choice of childbirth service

Carol Shepherd McClain

Social Science & Medicine, 1983, vol. 17, issue 23, 1857-1865

Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of the risk perceptions of a sample of pregnant women in a large metropolitan area on the West Coast regarding childbirth and its medical management, and how these perceptions correspond to their choice of childbirth service. The analysis first summarizes recent experimental work in cognitive and social psychology on information processing in decision making and examines its usefulness for the study of women's reproductive strategies in real life contexts. Following this, perceived risks of childbirth and its management are examined in light of the concept of 'bolstering', advanced in Janis and Mann's conflict theory of decision making. The findings, that women discount the risks and magnify the benefits of the chosen birth service, and exaggerate the risks and minimize the advantages of the rejected services, support the concept of bolstering and provide empirical evidence of its explanatory power in interpreting a decision making domain--women's childbirth care decision making--heretofore approached almost exclusively through description.

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(83)90162-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:socmed:v:17:y:1983:i:23:p:1857-1865

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().