Lay Theories of Health in Young and Middle Aged American Adults
Condition: Healthy
Study type: Observational

Summary: 
      This study is the second empirical investigation in a series of studies, examining what
      everyday people believe that it means to be healthy. Part of this research also involves
      examining whether these lay theories of health vary according to various demographic
      classifications.
    

Detailed description: 
      In the journal "Science," Engel (1977) proposed the term "biopsychosocial model" to recognize
      the social and psychological factors impacting health and illness. Psychologists have played
      a significant role in contributing to current evidence for this model, including
      understanding how individuals think about their health.

      Work in this area has corresponded to work on the implicit theories of individuals, and how
      those implicit theories have an impact upon cognition, affect, and behavior. Implicit
      theories are mental constructions about specific phenomena which, while often elaborate in
      structure, content, and function, are not well articulated by those who hold them.

      A failure to thoroughly investigate lay theories of health has implications for the
      biopsychosocial model of health and illness, which states that it is not only the knowledge
      of the physician, but also the beliefs of the patient, that have consequences for the
      patient's experience of health and illness. Research on individual beliefs regarding illness
      has been accumulating for some time, and it is becoming apparent that these beliefs have
      significant consequences for individual health behavior. However, current studies assessing
      lay theories regarding illness may be inadequate to achieving the goal of fully learning how
      lay theories have an impact upon health. The methodologies utilized rarely distinguish
      whether the implicit theories under study should be attributed to laypeople or to experts,
      and tend to assume that health and illness have perfect reciprocal correspondence with one
      another in the minds of laypeople. If researchers hope to understand laypeople's theories
      about health, exclusively investigating lay theories of illness will not suffice to answer
      the question.

      The present series of studies seeks to investigate a number of unanswered questions in the
      existing literature on lay theories of health. In a Prestudy, we investigated how adult
      laypeople define what it is to be healthy through open-ended survey questions. At the present
      time (the focus of the current IRB application) we hope to have participants rate the
      importance of each of the previously-gathered items to their concept of health (Study 1). We
      will then present the most important items in pairs to a second sample, and ask those
      participants to rate how similar or dissimilar the items are to one another. From these
      ratings, we will determine the structure of lay theories of health through scaling
      procedures. After determining the structure of lay theories (e.g., in terms of dimensions),
      we will focus on developing a comprehensive measure of lay theories of health. We will at
      that time conduct a series of validation studies to determine whether and how these
      dimensions of lay theories differ from those of experts, do or do not correspond with
      existing constructs measuring well-being, and are utilized by laypeople in making health
      judgments and decisions (which will be reviewed and conducted at a later date).
    

Intervention name(s): Assessment of beliefs and attitudes
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Keywords: lay theories; health concepts; survey; internet research; Ideas about health