The Role of Emotions and Regulatory Focus in Decision Making That Involves Risk Tradeoffs

Background: People with cancer often have to make complex decisions about their treatment. For some of these decisions, they have to weigh the benefits of a treatment against its side effects. They may have to think about its potential to increase the risk of another disease. One example is hormone replacement therapy. That reduces a woman s risk of getting colorectal cancer, but it raises her risk of getting breast cancer. Researchers want to learn more about how people make tradeoff decisions like these. Objective: To learn about how people respond to information about hypothetical health and medical treatment options. Eligibility: Adults ages 18 70. Design: Participants will have one 30-minute visit. Participants will complete a series of short questionnaires. These will be about their beliefs and values. Some may be about cancer and heart disease risk. Participants ages 18 to 29 will answer questions about sexual health. Participants will write a paragraph or two about a room in their house or about a life event. Participants will read a series of stories. These will describe different hypothetical health treatments. The stories describe a pill that lowers the risk of one health condition, but raises the risk for another. After each story, participants will note how willing they are to take the pill. Participants will answer questions about the information that they got. They will also answer questions about their health, beliefs, and opinions. Participants will do 2 attention tasks computer.