Recovery attributions: explicit endorsement of biomedical factors and implicit dominance of psycho-social factors.
Two studies assessed lay people's bio-medical and psycho-social attributions for recovery, using implicit and explicit methods, and one of them, Study 2, also measured individual differences in health locus of control. Participants were presented with a vignette of a patient with a severe disease for which chances of recovery vary widely, who had high or low levels of medical care and high or low psycho-social resources. They estimated his chances to recover from his illness (implicit attributions), and then, imagining another patient with the same disease, evaluated the relative importance of medical, psycho-social and other factors for his chances for recovery (explicit method). Findings show a moderation effect by assessment method: the explicit method pointed to dominance of biomedical attributions and the implicit method indicated dominance of psycho-social attributions. In addition, internal health locus of control was positively correlated with psycho-social attributions and external health locus of control (powerful others and chance) was correlated with biomedical attributions for recovery. The findings are discussed in relation to dual-process models of reasoning and self-serving defensive processes.
Shiloh
Shoshana
S
Department of Psychology, Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. shoshi@freud.tau.ac.il
Peretz
Galit
G
Iss
Ronny
R
Kiedan
Ravit
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003469:Culture; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D004194:Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012944:Social Support