Open AccessCures That (Make You) Work
Author(s) -
Jana S. Aengenheister,
Renée Urban,
Georg Halbeisen
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
zeitschrift für psychologie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.037
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 2190-8370
pISSN - 2151-2604
DOI - 10.1027/2151-2604/a000449
Subject(s) - perception , servant , psychology , work (physics) , health benefits , social psychology , applied psychology , medicine , engineering , mechanical engineering , software engineering , neuroscience , traditional medicine
Abstract. Successful treatment not only depends on adhering to taking medication and attending therapy but also on behavioral changes. In two experiments (total N = 256), we investigated the hypothesis that the perceived social role of a treatment as partner (co-producer of a health-benefits) or servant (sole provider of health benefits) could promote or prevent intentions to engage in health-related behaviors. Specifically, we used headache treatment as an everyday example and found that participants were more inclined to engage in headache-reducing behaviors when painkillers were described as partners as compared to servants. Implications of these findings for the importance of anthropomorphic social perception in the clinical application are discussed.