People Downplay Health Risks to Fulfill Their Goals: A Motivational Framework for Guiding Behavioral Policy

Risky behaviors represent serious threats to health and the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. Despite known negative consequences, people continue to abuse alcohol and drugs, to smoke, overeat, engage in risky sexual behavior, and drive under the influence of alcohol and drugs. This might happen because they perceive these behaviors as the best and sometimes the only means to fulfill important goals. To understand and to prevent health-risk behavior, scientists and policy-makers should consider the function that these behaviors serve. A theoretical framework based on the principles of goal pursuit helps explain (a) why health-risk behaviors become a means to people’s goals and (b) the psychological processes that facilitate initiation and maintenance of health-risk behaviors despite known negative consequences. Principles of goal pursuit could inform policy to reduce health-risk behaviors and their negative consequences.