Individual differences in self-assessed health: an information-processing investigation of health and illness cognition.

Full Abstract

In 2 studies, the relation between measures of self-assessed health (SAH) and automatic processing of health-relevant information was investigated. In Study 1, 84 male and 86 female undergraduate students completed a modified Stroop task. Results indicated that participants with poorer SAH showed enhanced interference effects for illness versus non-illness words. In Study 2, 27 male and 30 female undergraduate students completed a self-referent encoding task. Results offered a conceptual replication and extension of Study 1 by confirming the specificity of the relation between SAH measures and automatic processing of health (vs. negative or positive general trait) information. These studies provide evidence that individual differences in SAH are reflected in schematic processing of health-relevant information.

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Author information

Author/s: Williams, Paula G (PG); Wasserman, Michelle S (MS); Lotto, Andrew J (AJ);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington State University, P.O Box 644820, Pullman, Washington 99164-4820, USA. pwillms(-atsign-)wsu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association (Health Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Jan; vol 22 (issue 1) : pp 3-11

Dates: Created 2003/01/31; Completed 2003/04/15; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12558196, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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