Should we ask our children about sex, drugs, and rock & roll? A different conclusion

Fitzsimons and Moore argue that survey questions for adolescents concerning risky behaviors can increase the degree to which participants will adopt those behaviors. This outcome is likely to be true for behaviors about which adolescents have negative explicit attitudes but positive implicit attitudes. Such a conclusion is extremely important for the health of research participants, for researchers, and for the field in general. I argue that it is premature to accept these conclusions, raising questions about process issues as well as conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues.