Associations of spontaneous self-affirmation with health care experiences and health information seeking in a national survey of US adults

Psychology & Health
Jennifer M TaberPeter R Harris

Abstract

Self-affirming--such as by reflecting on one's strengths and values--reduces defensiveness to threatening information, reduces negative effects of stereotype threat and promotes prosociality. These outcomes may promote physical health, highlighting a need to examine the role of self-affirmation in medical and health contexts. Data were collected as part of the nationally representative, cross-sectional, 2013 Health Information National Trends Survey. Items were completed by 2731 respondents. Respondents answered questions about spontaneous self-affirmation tendencies, perceptions of providers and health care, involvement in medical appointments, health information seeking and engagement in medical research. Spontaneous self-affirmation was associated with more positive perceptions of communication with one's provider, better perceived quality of care, greater likelihood of asking questions in a medical appointment, greater information seeking for oneself and multiple indices of surrogate information seeking (i.e. seeking information for others). Four of eight significant associations remained significant when controlling for optimism. The associations of self-affirmation with aspects of the patient-provider relationship were no...Continue Reading

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Citations

Oct 27, 2015·Annals of Behavioral Medicine : a Publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine·Jennifer M TaberPeter R Harris
Jun 6, 2021·Annals of Behavioral Medicine : a Publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine·Emily B PetersonWilliam M P Klein

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