The Impact of Health-Related Emotions on Belief Formation and Behavior.

Summary We present a theoretical model of health beliefs and behaviors that explicitly takes into account the emotional impact of possible bad news (i.e., illness), ex-ante in the form of anxiety and ex-post in the form of disappointment. Our model makes it possible to explain (simultaneously) a number of anomalies such as ’low’ testing rates, heterogeneous perceptions of risk levels, underestimation of health risk, ostriches and hypochondriacs, over-use and under-use of health services, patient preference for information when relatively certain of not being ill, yet avoiding information when relatively certain of being ill, etc. Our model matches observed patterns both in health beliefs and health behaviors and irrational health beliefs and behaviors can be characterized as the optimal response under a given structure of emotions and preferences.