A Brief, Distance-Based Intervention Can Increase Intentions to Follow Evidence-Based Guidelines in Cancer Screening

Although research findings are increasingly accessible to the public, people may choose to rely on anecdotal over evidence-based information when making important decisions. Thus, a key challenge facing the scientific community is to develop effective strategies for increasing people’s reliance on research evidence in their decision-making. Focusing on the critical context of cancer-screening decisions, we find that a brief, distance-based intervention can influence people’s intentions to follow evidence-based rather than anecdotal information. Specifically, in a preregistered and well-powered experiment (N = 224), participants who set a screening schedule for the next 10 years before considering a decision for an upcoming appointment were more inclined to follow the implications of evidence-based screening guidelines (vs. an anecdote), compared to participants who only considered the upcoming appointment. The success of this distance-based intervention represents an important first step in translating decades of laboratory research on distance into practical interventions for more complex and consequential decisions.