| Determinants of health concerns, defined as (1) symptom reporting and (2) fear and worry about health and illness, were examined in two studies of healthy adults. In Study 1, 100 college undergraduates participated in an experiment in which the effects of negative mood and self-focused attention on perceived vulnerability to illness, real-ideal symptom experience discrepancy, importance of health in self-image, fear and worry about health and illness, treatment seeking tendency, and interest in health related products were examined. Negative mood was associated with greater perceived vulnerability to illness and more fear and worry about health and illness. Self-focused attention had less reliable effects, decreasing vulnerability judgments and real-ideal symptom experience discrepancy, but increasing the importance of health in subjects' self-image.; Study 2, a survey study involving a larger, older, and more varied sample of 250 adults, sought to clarify the effects of self-focus by measuring it in the specific form of body awareness and to explore the interrelationships among a group of variables hypothesized to predict health concerns. Predictor variables in this study were body awareness, negative mood, perceived vulnerability to illness, importance of health in self-image, and health history. Criterion variables were symptom reporting and fear and worry about health and illness. Body awareness, negative mood, and perceived vulnerability to illness made independent contributions to variance in both symptom reporting and fear and worry about illness. Importance of health in self-image was associated with increased fear and worry but decreased symptom reporting. All these effects held even when controlling for family health history.; The theoretical and clinical implications of the fact that negative mood and body awareness made independent contributions to health concerns were discussed. Issues raised by the use of a general construct such as "self-focused attention" in the study of health concerns were discussed, and recommendations were made for further exploration of the construct of body awareness as a particular form of self-focus. Theoretical links between elevated health concerns and a perseverative self-focusing style were explored. |
