Illness representations and matching labels with symptoms

Three studies are reported that show that health-relevant information (e.g., blood pressure [BP] or symptoms) initiates an active cognitive search process that results in the construction of an illness representation. Study 1 showed that informing subjects that their BP was elevated affected two attributes of illness representation: identity (label and symptoms), and time line or expected chronology of the health threat. Subjects given a high-BP reading reported symptoms commonly associated with high BP, especially if they attributed the high-BP reading to stress. Study 2 showed that the active search process uses causal information (a third attribute of representations) to give meaning to symptoms. Specifically, subjects used environmental cues to interpret whether familiar, unfamiliar, and ambiguous symptoms were due to illness or to stress. In Study 3 we showed that the constructive process, initiated by a high-BP reading, is directed by prior beliefs about the time line for developing high BP and by the presence of external cues about the stressfulness of the subject's daily life. Subjects who believed BP was labile and that they were under high daily stress or who believed BP was stable and that they were under low daily stress reported more symptoms. The significance of these findings for understanding how people process diagnostic labels and symptom information involved in the construction of illness representations is discussed.     

Gender-related effects in the perception of anger expression

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of sex of stimulus person, sex type of subject, and sex of subject on the social perception of anger expression. One hundred and sixty-six female and 100 male subjects completed a questionnaire that consisted of 10 vignettes depicting the expression of anger by either a female or a male stimulus person. For each vignette, subjects rated the psychological balance, expected frequency of behavior, perceived degree of anger, and appropriateness of behavior. Overall, female stimulus persons were rated higher on all dependent measures, but only male raters significantly differentiated between male and female stimulus persons. Generally, female subjects gave higher ratings, but viewed angry behavior as less appropriate than did male subjects. Ratings were also found to be related to subjects' scores on Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire scales that involved socially undesirable traits. Post hoc analysis indicated that the type of anger response (“aggressive” or “nonaggressive”) was also an important variable, especially for the female subjects.     

Causes and consequences of time perception differences in overweight and normal weight people.

Three experiments considered whether there are differences between overweight and normal weight subjects in time perception which represent the obese subjects' lack of internal responsiveness as well as heightened external reactivity in a noneating setting. In the first study, no time-relevant cues were provided, and overweight subjects were inaccurate in their temporal judgments and showed significantly higher group variability than did normals. In the second study, the effects of differential temporal information generated by interesting and boring cues was considered. The presentation of these time-relevant external cues reduced the judgment variability of the overweight subjects and influenced their perceived passage of time significantly more than normals. The third study examined the influence, on eating behavior, of differences in perceived passage of time as a consequence of manipulating cues for interest or boredom. When bored, overweight subjects perceived time to pass more slowly than did normals and thus ate sooner. Similarly, they delayed eating, judging time to have passed more quickly than it actually had, when they were attending to interesting cues. The implications of a generalized lack of internal sensitivity for a theory about the development and consequences of obesity are discussed.     

Behavioral and psychological implications of body dissatisfaction: Do men and women differ?

The relationships of body satisfaction, self-esteem, dieting, and exercise were studied in 92 men and women. Men and women did not differ in degree of body dissatisfaction as assessed by three different measures. However, on the direction of body dissatisfaction, men were as likely to want to be heavier as thinner, whereas virtually no women wished to be heavier. Although overall body esteem was correlated with self-esteem for both men and women, measures of weight dissatisfaction were not associated with self-esteem for women. The normative nature of weight dissatisfaction for women today may serve to buffer its effects on self-esteem. Women reported exercising for weight control more than men, and exercising for weight control was associated with disregulated eating.     

Is Bad News Always Bad?: Cue and Feedback Effects on Intrinsic Motivation

Although previous research has suggested that, in general, negative feedback concerning performance reduces intrinsically motivated activity, results of the present study indicate that mild negative feedback can increase intrinsic motivation when associated with environmental cues signalling self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Subjects working on brain-teasers who were given mild negative feedback—but who had a choice of problems to solve, no expectation of evaluation, and who received scores privately—retained as much or more intrinsic motivation than subjects given positive feedback under the same conditions. Subjects in controlling contexts showed less intrinsic motivation. The measure of intrinsic motivation used in this study was a sum of standardized mood and target activity, following recent criticisms of the use of strictly behavioral measures to operationalize intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 1986).     

Visual discrimination learning in the killer whale (Orcinus orca)

Trial-and-error and errorless training procedures were used to train two killer whales on a simple visual discrimination problem. Both whales demonstrated difficulties in solving the problem under trial-and-error training. The relative effectiveness of the two training procedures is evaluated.     

Relation of level of exercise, age, and weight-cycling history to weight and eating concerns in male and female runners.

We examined the association between level of exercise and degree of weight preoccupation in a large sample of male and female runners, as well as risk factors posited to influence weight and eating concerns in the general population. Subjects were 2,459 males and 1,786 females who had completed a questionnaire on weight and eating concerns in a national running magazine. Eight percent of the males and 24% of the females had symptomatic scores on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT). Exercise level, defined as weekly running mileage, was positively associated with excessive weight and eating concerns in males but not in females. Both sexes with a history of weight cycling were more likely to have symptomatic EAT scores than those with no such history. These results highlight the importance of studying these concerns in males as well as females and of examining the role of exercise level and weight-cycling history in the development of serious weight preoccupations.