If you were ever tempted to look for medical advice on Google or wait for a symptom to pass because you did not want to see a doctor, you would probably be interested in our research. In the project Reason4health: Irrational mindset as a conceptual bridge from psychological dispositions to questionable health practices, we studied the psychological roots of the two kinds of questionable health practices: non-adherence to the recommendation of the official medicine and utilization of traditional, alternative, and complementary medical practices that are not evidence-based. Through several studies with diverse methodological approaches, we investigated the psychological bases of questionable health practices. First, we conducted a content analysis of media reports on traditional and alternative medicine from the twelve most-read online informative portals and magazines in Serbia. We conducted surveys with citizens of Serbia, including one on a representative sample and using the innovative method of experience sampling to study the prevalence of questionable health behaviors. Crucially, we investigated several levels of psychological determinants of these behaviors, from some basic personality characteristics, then irrational beliefs as propensity to conspiratorial thinking or magical health beliefs, to some social-psychological factors, such as religiosity, trust in doctors and the health system, as well as negative experiences with the medical system. Finally, we designed a series of experiments to test an intervention aimed at inducing a critical appraisal of questionable health practices.

The project brought together a multidisciplinary team of researchers from cognitive, social, health and personality psychology from the Faculty of Philosophy, Faculty of Education and Special Rehabilitation and the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory from the University of Belgrade. The project was funded by the Science fund of the Republic of Serbia under the IDEAS programme (#7739597). Principal investigator is dr. Iris Žeželj, full professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.