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Dehumanizing but competent: The impact of gender, illness type, and emotional expressiveness on patient perceptions of doctors
Author(s) -
Adams Samantha M.,
Case Trevor I.,
Fitness Julie,
Stevenson Richard J.
Publication year - 2017
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/jasp.12433
Subject(s) - dehumanization , vignette , psychology , perception , humanism , social psychology , metaphor , psychotherapist , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , sociology , anthropology , political science , law
This study is the first attempt to investigate men's and women's anticipated reactions to a consultation with a doctor holding either a dehumanizing or humanistic approach to patient treatment. Participants ( N = 375) read a vignette depicting a doctor's treatment philosophy—emphasizing either the metaphor of the body as a machine (dehumanizing condition) or emphasizing individual humanness (humanizing condition). They then imagined consulting the doctor about a psychological or physical illness. Although, medical dehumanization had undesirable consequences, some men rated the dehumanizing doctor as more competent than the humanizing doctor. These were men who were (a) emotionally expressive and seeking help for a psychological illness, and (b) men low in emotional expressiveness seeking help for a physical illness.