Negative Mood, Self-Focused Attention, and the Experience of Physical Symptoms: The Joint Impact Hypothesis. |
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Authors: | Gendolla, Guido H. E. Abele, Andrea E. Andrei, Andrea Spurk, Daniel Richter, Michael |
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Abstract: | A joint impact hypothesis on symptom experience is introduced that specifies the role of negative mood and self-focus, which have been considered independently in previous research. Accordingly, negative affect only promotes symptom experience when people simultaneously focus their attention on the self. One correlational study and 4 experiments supported this prediction: Only negative mood combined with self-focus facilitated the experience (see the self-reports in Studies 1, 2a, & 2b) and the accessibility (lexical decisions, Stroop task in Studies 3 & 4) of physical symptoms, whereas neither positive mood nor negative mood without self-focus did. Furthermore, the joint impact of negative mood and self-focused attention on momentary symptom experience remained significant after controlling for the influence of dispositional symptom reporting and neuroticism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
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Keywords: | symptom experience affect self-focus negative mood self-focused attention physical symptoms joint impact hypothesis |
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