HYPOCHONDRIASIS - THE ROLE OF FEAR-CONFIRMING REASONING

We investigated whether hypochondriacal patients-are prone to selectiv ely search for danger-confirming information when asked to judge the v alidity of conditional rules in the context of general and health thre ats. Therefore, hypochodtriacal patients (n = 27) and a healthy contro l group (n = 27) were presented with modified Wason Selection Tasks (W STs) pertaining to general and health threats. The WSTs contained safe ty rules (If P then safe) and danger rules (If P then danger). Subject s adopted a verificationistic strategy in case of danger rules and ten ded to look for falsifications incase of safety rules. This danger-con firming reasoning pattern was similar for both types of contexts and n ot particularly pronounced in hypochondriacal persons. These findings argue against the idea that such a reasoning pattern directly causes h ypochondriasis; Yet, in the presence of anxiogenic (hypochondriasis re lated) convictions such danger-confirming reasoning pattern logically serves to maintain or even enhance hypochondriacal complaints. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.