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Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3534222/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23075409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173 |
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author | Schwenzer, Michael Mathiak, Klaus |
author_facet | Schwenzer, Michael Mathiak, Klaus |
author_sort | Schwenzer, Michael |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm glow effect so far and the present study aimed to corroborate this association. Particularly, the present investigation tested for the first time whether social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect represent distinct or related biases in hypochondriacal attitudes. METHODS: Fifty-five volunteers filled in the Hypochondriacal Beliefs and Disease Phobia scales of the Illness Attitude Scales, two scales enquiring social fears of criticism and intimacy, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The interaction of valence and spontaneous familiarity ratings of Chinese characters indicated the warm glow effect. RESULTS: A stepwise regression model revealed specific covariance of social fears and warm glow with hypochondriacal attitudes independent from the respective other variable. The correlation between low self-esteem and hypochondriacal attitudes missed significance. CONCLUSIONS: Hypochondriacal attitudes are embedded in a heterogeneous cluster of non-illness-related cognitions. Each social fears and a reduced cognitive capacity to associate two features – positive appraisal and familiarity - could diminish the susceptibility to safety signals such as medical reassurance. To compensate for reduced susceptibility to safety signals, multifocal treatment and repeated consultations appear advisable. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3534222 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-35342222013-01-07 Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions Schwenzer, Michael Mathiak, Klaus BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm glow effect so far and the present study aimed to corroborate this association. Particularly, the present investigation tested for the first time whether social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect represent distinct or related biases in hypochondriacal attitudes. METHODS: Fifty-five volunteers filled in the Hypochondriacal Beliefs and Disease Phobia scales of the Illness Attitude Scales, two scales enquiring social fears of criticism and intimacy, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The interaction of valence and spontaneous familiarity ratings of Chinese characters indicated the warm glow effect. RESULTS: A stepwise regression model revealed specific covariance of social fears and warm glow with hypochondriacal attitudes independent from the respective other variable. The correlation between low self-esteem and hypochondriacal attitudes missed significance. CONCLUSIONS: Hypochondriacal attitudes are embedded in a heterogeneous cluster of non-illness-related cognitions. Each social fears and a reduced cognitive capacity to associate two features – positive appraisal and familiarity - could diminish the susceptibility to safety signals such as medical reassurance. To compensate for reduced susceptibility to safety signals, multifocal treatment and repeated consultations appear advisable. BioMed Central 2012-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3534222/ /pubmed/23075409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173 Text en Copyright ©2012 Schwenzer and Mathiak.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Schwenzer, Michael Mathiak, Klaus Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title | Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title_full | Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title_fullStr | Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title_full_unstemmed | Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title_short | Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
title_sort | hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3534222/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23075409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173 |
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