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做出危及自己健康的行为方面，仍然存在相当大的差距。然而，许多研究文献表明，健康决策可能会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。通过考虑影响两种动机来源的因素，可以获得对有效干预措施的进一步洞察。在这一点上，越来越多的社会心理学研究表明，这两组动机都可以由有意识和无意识的死亡想法触发。然而，这一框架直到最近才被应用于行为健康，因为研究表明，癌症等健康威胁可能会引发对死亡率的担忧。这项拟议的研究试图通过调查三个中心问题来完善和扩大对死亡率担忧和癌症相关预防行为之间的接口的理解。目标1是在明确激发死亡想法的健康传播的背景下，检查以健康为导向的动机的有效性。目标2将在健康交流的背景下检查以自我为导向的动机的有效性，这些动机隐含地激活了死亡的想法。目标3测试这些干预措施能够产生持久影响的机制。因此，拟议项目的广泛意图是继续揭示对死亡的担忧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提供翻译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.