Self-Affirmation and Defensiveness to Health Messages for the Self vs. a Close Other

Overview

Background: \- Researchers want to learn about people s beliefs and values. They also want to learn about how people respond to information about cancer risk. They have created two short studies. They have combined these studies for convenience. Objective: \- To learn about people s beliefs and values, and about how people respond to information about cancer risk. Eligibility: \- Adults age 40-70 who are overweight, have never had cancer, and have an opposite-sex close relationship with someone in that age group who is also overweight. Design: * This study will take place online or in a laboratory. * Participants will take part in two studies. One is Values Study. The other is Cancer Risk Information. * In Values Study, some participants will choose the most important value from a list. They will write about why that value is important to them. Others will choose the least important value from a list. They will write about why that value may be important to someone else. * In Cancer Risk Information, participants will read a health message about a cancer risk relevant to themselves or to a close other. Some will wear special glasses that track their eye movements as they read. * Participants will then answer questions about their beliefs about cancer risk and their intentions to lose weight. * Both studies will take 30 minutes.

Self-affirmation, a process by which individuals reflect on cherished personal values is a potent means of augmenting the effectiveness of threatening health communications. Individuals tend to be defensive against information suggesting their behavior puts them at risk for disease or negative health. Previous evidence suggests that self-affirmation may reduce defensiveness to threatening health information, increasing openness to the message and resulting in increased disease risk perceptions, disease-related worry, intentions to engage in preventive behavior, and actual behavioral change. One mechanism by which self-affirmation may be effective is by reducing self-focus and expanding self-concept. If this is the case, self-affirmation may not be effective in reducing defensiveness against information that is threatening to one s close other. We are proposing two studies to examine whether self-affirmation is equally effective at reducing defensiveness against threatening information for the self and for a close other. These studies will not only highlight conditions under which self-affirmation is effective, but also shed light on mechanisms underlying the effect.