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Patient Distress Undermines the Credibility of Illness Complaints 1
Author(s) -
Skelton J. A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1995.tb02388.x
Subject(s) - psychology , credibility , distress , sore throat , conversation , clinical psychology , social psychology , medicine , surgery , communication , political science , law
Two studies examined the effects of telling lay perceivers about patients' n]onmedical problems. In Study 1, college students rated a male peer's report of a sore throat as less credible and more psychologically caused when these co‐occurred with non‐medical problems (midterm exams or insomnia), even when diagnostic results for strep throat were positive. In Study 2, perceivers received no diagnostic information, and gender of the stimulus patient was varied systematically. The patient was rated as less credible if insomnia was mentioned in a conversation, regardless of the patient's gender. Nonmedical problems also affected which health advice perceivers gave to the patient. These findings are compared with those of previous research on credibility judgment processes, and implications are traced for lay perceivers' m]ental models of illness.