Cancer fear and the interpretation of ambiguous information related to cancer |
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| Authors: | Anne Miles Sanne Voorwinden Andrew Mathews Laura C. Hoppitt Jane Wardle |
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| Affiliation: | 1. University College London , London, UK a.miles@ucl.ac.uk;3. University College London , London, UK;4. University of California , Davis, CA, USA;5. University of East Anglia , Norwich, UK |
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| Abstract: | We tested the hypothesis that people with a high fear of cancer would be more likely to interpret ambiguous information about cancer in a negative manner compared with people low on cancer fear. Adults (n=47) aged 50–70, who scored either high (n=16) or low (n=31) on cancer fear, took part in a laboratory-based ambiguous sentences task. Participants were presented with ambiguous cancer and social threat scenarios mixed with unambiguous neutral scenarios. Interpretations were assessed in a recognition task, by asking participants to rate disambiguated sentences in terms of how similar in meaning they were to the originals. People high on cancer fear were more likely to endorse negative interpretations of the original ambiguous cancer scenarios than were people low on cancer fear. This negative interpretation bias was specific to cancer scenarios and was not observed for the social threat scenarios. |
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