RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SELF-ASSESSMENTS, IMPLICIT THEORIES OF RISK AND MEDICAL WORKERS’ PERSONAL RISK READINESS

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify the relationships between self-assessed readiness to risk, implicit theories of risk and personal risk readiness in the following comparative analysis of samples: 1) medical versus non-medical students (the latter also specializing in a “human-to-human” type of profession) and 2) medical students versus practicing doctors. Differences in the measured variables were analyzed between the two student groups and the sample of doctors (the latter was compared with medical students). For each of the three groups, the relationships between all the measured variables were identified and the intergroup differences in the established relationships were described. It is identifies that the doctors to a greater extent rather than medical students perceive risk as “insufficiency of rationality” and as “an impossibility to prognosticate”. For medical students, an implicit theory of “hedonistic risk” is expressed to a greater extent than in case with the doctors. For all three samples, links are established between self-assessed readiness to risk and the implicit theory of “deliberate risk”. But only for medical students, this self-assessment is significantly associated with the implicit theory of “hedonistic risk”.