Against omission bias: Adolescents prefer commissions in vaccination decision-making.

Authors

Yanwei Wang, Zonghua Shi, Jiatai Li, Yanjie Su

Published in

Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence. Volume 36. Issue 2. Pages e70218.

Abstract

People prefer choosing omission rather than commission when the risks of negative outcomes are similar, which is known as omission bias. While adults exhibit omission bias in various contexts, whether adolescents exhibit omission bias in decision-making remains a matter of debate. The present study examined the choice between commission and omission of early-to-middle adolescents (n = 123) and young adults (n = 131) in a classic vaccination decision-making context. The results revealed that adolescents were more inclined to commission, especially when the risks of negative outcomes for both choices were equal. Drift diffusion model analysis revealed that compared to young adults, adolescents had a similar drift rate but a much lower threshold separation. These findings suggest that adolescents had a preference for commission in decision-making, which might motivate adolescents to engage in positive risk-taking and gain social experience.

PMID:
42322152
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 20 Jun 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.