Making the Decision to Do Something Is Not the Same as Doing It
Marie Helweg-Larsen in the Kaufman Building, home of the Department of Psychology. Photo by Stephen Munchel.
Office Hours: Professor of Psychology Marie Helweg-Larsen
by Tony Moore
Professor of Psychology Marie Helweg-Larsen earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dickinson's Glenn E. & Mary Line Todd Chair in the Social Science and director of the Social Identity & Risk Lab, she does research in social psychology, health psychology and cross-cultural psychology—specifically why smart people do dumb things and how to make them stop. She is currently exploring how smokers react to being stigmatized.
If people know what’s good for them, why don’t they always act on it? And how do you explore that disconnect with students at Dickinson?
Students should dive headfirst into the many areas of expertise that Dickinson offers. You never know which topic might unexpectedly bring a new perspective into view. And obviously, students should take my Social Psychology class, which is open to all students! But here is the short version.
First, the decision to do something is not the same as doing it—attitudes are not behaviors. You can change your behavior without a corresponding change in attitudes toward that behavior. Perhaps a friend drags you to the gym and you make a new habit of enjoying time with a friend, but you never actually come to think about your exercise being a worthwhile goal. That does not mean that your body did not appreciate your exercise—just that you found different motivators for getting to the gym.
Second, you might change your attitude to match your current behavior, as the theory of cognitive dissonance explains. My research shows that smokers generally believe that smoking is bad for one’s health, but they also hold other beliefs that minimize the conflict between their attitudes and behaviors. For example, the more smokers agree with smoking supportive beliefs such as “You’ve got to die of something, so why not enjoy yourself and smoke?” or “You can overcome the harms of smoking by eating healthy food and exercising regularly” the less interested they are in quitting. Similarly, seeing their own risk of getting lung cancer as low is also associated with less willingness to quit smoking. My students call these beliefs “excuses” but to the smokers it makes sense to hold positive attitudes toward smoking until they are ready to quit.
Bottom line: You can change your behavior—just do it—but you might consider how your attitudes are throwing up roadblocks to the change you want.
You've written about Denmark's "free-range" approach to parenting—kids playing unsupervised, taking risks, figuring things out on their own—as a model for raising more resilient kids. For those of us who grew up riding bikes without helmets, throwing rocks as sport and only heading home when we heard our parents yelling our names across the neighborhood at dark, this sounds less like a parenting philosophy and more like just ... Tuesday. What does the research actually tell us about why that approach works?
Denmark consistently scores at the top of global happiness rankings. It's also rated the best place to raise children, with some of the highest scores for child well-being in the world. One key factor might be that Danish children are encouraged to engage in risky, unstructured play.
Danes have two words for the English word "play." There's leg—unstructured play—and spille, used for activities with pre-established rules, like soccer, chess or playing the violin.
Research shows that unstructured, spontaneous play requires more compromise and creativity, since kids have the freedom to make up the rules. They learn to take turns and work through problems—skills that are harder to develop when adults step in or the rules are already set.
Risky play is a form of unstructured play involving exciting activities with the possibility of physical injury. On a playground, that might mean climbing tall structures, going headfirst down a slide or roughhousing. Research shows risky play boosts mental health by teaching children resilience and emotional regulation—qualities that help them become competent, independent adults.
Danish and American parents have notably different tolerances for danger. One study found Danish mothers were significantly more comfortable than American mothers with their children in risky play situations. Danish parents tend to see children as innately competent—trusting them to navigate challenges on their own. American parents are more likely to view kids as vulnerable and in need of protection. Somewhat ironically, children with less independence are more likely to struggle with mental health.
The benefits of risky play—tolerating failure, distress and uncertainty—aren't just important parts of childhood. They're important parts of being human.
You study why smart people do dumb things, which, given the current state of the world, sounds less like a research agenda and more like a public service. What's the most important thing your work has revealed that people really ought to know about themselves?
The optimistic bias—which I have studied for decades—refers to when people see themselves as less susceptible to risk than others. We think, for example, that we’re less at risk than other people of having a stroke, getting injured in a car accident or getting divorced. The root causes of optimistic bias reside in exaggerating how much control we have over our outcomes, weighing unduly our past experiences and not feeling worried about the risk. Objective information about a risk—remember COVID-times where lots of objective information was routinely ignored—plays a much smaller role in our evaluations.
Underlying optimistic bias and other biases form our motivated cognition, which helps us reach the conclusions we desire. We are motivated to both gather and evaluate evidence in a seemingly systematic and unbiased way, but we do not realize that this process is fraught with biases that help us arrive at the conclusion we want. We seek out information that aligns with our beliefs, and we can learn this kind of information more easily than contradictory facts. We avoid, ignore, devalue, forget or argue against any information that contradicts our beliefs. We agree that other people are biased but see our own self-assessments as accurate and objective. They are not!
These biases pose a threat to us as individuals, but they also have the power to impact our entire society. If our decision makers at work, school, governments, nonprofits, etc. misunderstand risk, they may cause harm by making misguided policies or guidelines that are too cautious or too risky.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published June 29, 2026