Contribution of concrete cognition to emotion: Neutral symptoms as elicitors of worry about cancer.

Abstract

The relationship between worry about cancer and judged cancer risk was examined among 54 expatients who had been cured of breast cancer and 81 women with no history of cancer. Worry required both a perception of substantial risk and the presence of concrete perceptual cues. Worry promoters include visits to a physician and concrete, noncancerlike symptoms (e.g., fever, pain). Supporting analyses indicate that the symptom effects are not due to self-report biases or attributions of symptoms to cancer but are the result of a reminder process whereby vulnerability beliefs are aroused by somatic cues. Judged cancer risk was unrelated to affective cues, suggesting that across-time variation in worry about cancer reflects the onset and offset of symptom episodes rather than a shift in risk appraisals. Expatients were more worried overall than nonpatient controls. The results have implications for controlling disease worry and initiating preventive behaviors.

A prospective study of the impact of nasopharyngeal cancer and radiotherapy on the psychosocial condition of Chinese patients

“…Many cancer researchers have commented on how the fear of recurrence may be triggered and maintained by persistent physical distress: especially by distress similar to that caused by the active cancer. 30,31 Similar observations have been made in breast cancer survivors, who indicated that their fear of recurrence was triggered by physical signs on their breasts, such as a change in color or swelling, that reminded them of the initial cancer. 32 Our patients with NPC who had gone through RT faced the same kind of problem, which that made complacency unlikely.…”

Tratamiento de un caso de Hipocondría con rituales obsesivos

“…Esto es coherente con las hipótesis actuales sobre la hipocondría que apuntan hacia la hipervigilancia de las propias sensaciones corporales como un factor importante en el desanrollo y mantenimiento de la enfermedad (Easterning y Leventhal, 1989;Warwick y Saikovskis, 1990;Hitchcock y Mathews, 1992;Avia, 1993). Además, la continua manipulación de sus senos le llegó a producir una importante irritación y la aparición de hematomas en esta zona, lo cual servía por sí mismo como estímulo desencadenante de las cogniciones hipocondríacas y la posterior conducta de exploración.…”

Analyzing The Effects Of Product Label Messages On Consumers Attitudes And Intentions

“…Among the concepts, fear is considered in two different forms: fear of gaining weight, proposed as a motivator (Witte, 1998) of intention and fear of sweeteners, the ingredients used to sweeten sugar-free drinks, proposed as an inhibitor (Witte, 1998). Fear has been conceptualized as "a negatively-valenced emotion, accompanied by a high level of arousal (Witte, 1998) and elicited by a threat that is perceived to be significant and personally relevant" (Easterling & Leventhal 1989;Lang 1984;Ortony & Turner 1990, Witte 1992). In the case that fear of gaining weight is related to the negative reinforcement, often used in fear advertising appeals.…”