Impact of Mortality Concerns on Cancer Risk Behavior

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管心理学研究做出了重要贡献，但在理解为什么个人会从事危及健康的行为方面仍存在相当大的差距。然而，许多研究文献表明，健康决策可以受到个人与健康有关的动机以及他们保持自我价值感的动机的影响。通过考虑影响这两种动机来源的因素，可以进一步深入了解有效的干预措施。有鉴于此，越来越多的社会心理学研究表明，有意识和无意识的死亡思想都可能引发这两种动机。然而，这个框架直到最近才被应用到行为健康领域，因为研究表明，癌症等健康威胁会引发人们对死亡的担忧。拟议的研究旨在通过调查三个中心问题来完善和扩展对死亡率关注和癌症相关预防行为之间的接口的理解。目的1是检查在明确激活死亡思想的健康交流背景下针对健康导向动机的有效性。目标2将检查在隐含地激活死亡思想的健康交流背景下针对自我导向动机的有效性。目标3测试这些干预措施能够产生持久影响的机制。因此，拟议项目的总体意图是继续揭示对死亡的关注如何影响一些癌症相关领域的核心心理过程，最终目标是通过为更有效的干预措施提供转化建议来降低癌症发病率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite vital contributions from psychological research, there remain considerable gaps in understanding why individuals engage in behavior that puts their health at risk. However, much of the research literature reveals that health decisions can be influenced by individuals' motivations pertaining to health as well as their motivations to maintain a sense of self-value. Further insights into effective interventions may be gained by considering factors that influence both sources of motivation. In this light an increasing amount of social psychological research shows that both sets of motives can be triggered by conscious and unconscious thoughts of death. Yet this framework has only recently been applied to behavioral health as research indicates that health threats such as cancer can activate concerns about mortality. The proposed research seeks to refine and extend understanding of the interface between mortality concerns and cancer relevant preventative behavior by investigating three central issues. Aim 1 is to examine the effectiveness of targeting health-oriented motivations in the context of health communications that explicitly activate thoughts of death. Aim 2 will examine the effectiveness of targeting self-oriented motivations in the context of health communications that implicitly activate thoughts of death. Aim 3 tests mechanisms by which these interventions can have enduring effects. The broad intention of the proposed project is thus to continue to reveal how concerns about death influence core psychological processes in a number of cancer-relevant areas, with the ultimate goal of reducing cancer rates by providing translational suggestions for more effective interventions.