INCREASING PERCEPTIONS OF DISEASE VULNERABILITY THROUGH IMAGERY

Citation
Mt. Depalma et al., INCREASING PERCEPTIONS OF DISEASE VULNERABILITY THROUGH IMAGERY, Journal of American college health, 44(5), 1996, pp. 227-234
Citations number
36
Categorie Soggetti
Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath","Education & Educational Research
ISSN journal
07448481
Volume
44
Issue
5
Year of publication
1996
Pages
227 - 234
Database
ISI
SICI code
0744-8481(1996)44:5<227:IPODVT>2.0.ZU;2-H
Abstract
Increasing the cognitive availability of disease symptoms can increase perceptions of vulnerability to a fictitious disease. Research findin gs have also suggested that men and women respond differently to AIDS information; nevertheless, prior research has failed to examine the ef fects of imagery on both male and female perceptions of vulnerability to a real disease, such as AIDS. Undergraduates were presented with sy mptoms that were either hard to imagine or easy to imagine (labeled as related to either AIDS or hyposcenia-B) that the students then read o r imagined. The results, which replicated prior research, indicated th at imagining disease symptoms altered the students' perceived vulnerab ility to a fictitious disease. However, only imagery was significantly related to perceived vulnerability to AIDS, and gender interacted wit h this imagery process. Women expressed significant increases in perce ived vulnerability when reading the disease symptoms, whereas men were more vulnerable when imagining the disease symptoms than they were wh en they read about the symptoms. The authors discuss the implications of their research for the integration of theory and experimentation in designing AIDS-intervention programs.