Defensive processing of personally relevant health messages
Abstract
Subectsfor whom a health threat was relvant or irrelevant were recruited and matched on prior beliefs in the health threat. Following exposure to either a low- or a high-threat message, high-relvance subjects were less likely to believe in the threat. Consistent with earlier work, no evidence was found to suggest that defensive inattention to the messages mediated subjects' final beliefs. Instead, processing measures suggested that highrelevance subects processed threatening parts of both messages in a biased fashion. The relationship between biased judgment and biased processing is discussed, as are the difficulties in documenting the latter
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Proximal defenses are threat-focused and push conscious death-related thoughts out of awareness, either through adaptive problem-solving or through distortions such as denying vulnerability and biased processing of threatening information.
“Proximal defenses are threat-focused and function to push these thoughts out of consciousness, either by addressing them in adaptive ways or engaging in cognitive distortions. These entail either rational problem-solving responses that reduce actual risk or defensive responses such as the denial of vulnerability and biased processing of personally relevant threatening information (Croyle et al., 1”
From Understanding user responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter from a terror management theory perspective: Cultural differences among the US, UK and India (2022) · cites this paper as Liberman & Chaiken, 1992
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“…1995) and whether depicted susceptibility was manipulated to be higher in the treatment group relative to the comparison group (e.g., the treatment group received a message focusing on how coffee consumption will likely lead the message recipient to develop fibromyalgia ; Liberman & Chaiken, 1992).”
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- Authors
- liberman, A., & Chaiken, S.
- Affiliations
- New York University (US)
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1992-12
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 669-679
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W1984798263
- Cited by
- 619
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 94.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Keywords
- defensive processing, health messaging, health hazards, message relevance, belief revision
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