Abstract
This chapter provides a selective review of the use of experimental social psychological methods to test hypotheses and predictions in health psychology/behavioral medicine. Although such methods have limited ecological validity, they have the virtue of tight controls and being able to test causal relationships. Thus, they provide a complementary and supplementary approach to descriptive-correlational methodologies. Five research paradigms using experimental social psychological methods are described: the Thioamine Acetylase (TAA) paradigm for studying illness cognition, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) paradigm for assessing psychophysiological responses to stress, mental harassment in the context of hostility and cardiovascular risk, social support in the context of behavioral stress, and research on advanced directives. In each section, we describe how the experimental paradigms can refine and bolster findings based on non-experimental, observational methods.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Of note, Croyle and Sande’s (1988) study took place in the exam room of a student health clinic—a conventional medical setting. Additionally, participants did not self-administer the TAA test; instead, a research assistant posing as a nurse performed the test. The fact that previous results were replicated in the context of these alterations served to underscore the validity of this experimental paradigm.
- 2.
Comparable procedures have been used to demonstrate that individuals likewise discount the seriousness of actual health disorders, namely hypertension (Croyle, 1990).
- 3.
For an extensive review of research in both nominally healthy and clinical samples related to the TSST paradigm, see Kudielka et al (2007).
- 4.
Actual numbers may vary, but primes are recommended to maximize difficulty.
- 5.
Although the studies summarized here primarily demonstrated the protective effects of social support, the evidence is somewhat mixed as others have reported that the presence of a friend or supportive other can increase reactivity and hinder performance (e.g., Allen et al, 1991) or does not differ from those tested alone (Sheffield and Carroll, 1994). See Uchino et al, 1996 for a more detailed review.
References
Allen, K. M., Blascovich, J., Tomaka, J., and Kelsey, R. M. (1991). Presence of human friends and pet dogs as moderators of autonomic responses to stress in women. J Pers Soc Psychol, 61, 582–589.
American Geriatrics Society Public Policy Committee (1991). AGS Position Statement: Medical Treatment Decisions Concerning Elderly Persons. New York: American Geriatrics Society.
Baergen, R. (1995). Revising the substituted judgment standard. J Clin Ethics, 6, 30–38.
Baumann, L. J., Cameron, L. D., Zimmerman, R. S., and Leventhal, H. (1989). Illness representations and matching labels with symptoms. Health Psychol, 8, 449–469.
Berger, M., Bossert, S., Krieg, J. C., Dirlich, G., Ettmeier, W., Schreiber, W. et al (1987). Interindividual differences in the susceptibility of the cortisol system: an important factor for the degree of hypercortisolism in stress situations? Biol Psychiatry, 22, 1327–1339.
Berkman, L. F. (1985). The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality. In S. Cohen & S. L. Syme (Eds.), Social Support and Health (pp. 241–262). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Bower, J. E., Ganz, P. A., and Aziz, N. (2005). Altered cortisol response to psychologic stress in breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue. Psychosom Med, 67, 277–280.
Buske-Kirschbaum, A., Geiben, A., Hollig, H., Morschhauser, E., and Hellhammer, D. (2002a). Altered responsiveness of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic adrenomedullary system to stress in patients with atopic dermatitis. J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 87, 4245–4251.
Buske-Kirschbaum, A., Gierens, A., Hollig, H., and Hellhammer, D. H. (2002b). Stress-induced immunomodulation is altered in patients with atopic dermatitis. J Neuroimmunol, 129, 161–167.
Carlsmith, J. M., Ellsworth, P. C., and Aronson, E. (1976). Methods of Research in Social Psychology. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Chida, Y., and Steptoe, A. (2009). The association of anger and hostility with future coronary heart disease: a meta-analytic review of prospective evidence. J Am Coll Cardiol, 53, 936–946.
Christenfeld, N., Gerin, W., Linden, W., Sanders, M., Mathur, J. et al (1997). Social support effects on cardiovascular reactivity: is a stranger as effective as a friend? Psychosom Med, 59, 388–398.
Cohen, S. (1988). Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical disease. Health Psychol, 7, 269–297.
Cohen, S., Kaplan, J. R., and Manuck, S. B. (1994). Social support and coronary heart disease: underlying psychologic & biologic mechanisms. In S. A. Shumaker & S. M. Czajkowski (Eds.), Social Support and Cardiovascular Disease. New York: Plenum.
Coppola, K. M., Bookwala, J., Ditto, P. H., Lockhart, L. K., Danks, J. H. et al (1999). Elderly adults’ preferences for life-sustaining treatments: the role of impairment, prognosis, and pain. Death Stud, 23, 617–634.
Coppola, K. M., Ditto, P. H., Danks, J. H., and Smucker, W. D. (2001). Accuracy of primary care and hospital-based physicians’ predictions of elderly outpatients’ treatment preferences with and without advance directives. Arch Intern Med, 161, 431–440.
Cook, W. W., and Medley, D. M. (1954). Proposed hostility and pharisaic-virtue for the MMPI. J Appl Psychol, 38, 414–418.
Croog, S. H., Shapiro, D. S., and Levine, S. (1971). Denial among heart patients. Psychosom Med, 33, 385–397.
Croyle, R. T. (1990). Biased appraisal of high blood pressure. Prev Med, 19, 40–44.
Croyle, R. T., and Ditto, P. H. (1990). Illness cognition and behavior: an experimental approach. J Behav Med, 13, 31–52.
Croyle, R. T., and Sande, G. N. (1988). Denial and confirmatory search: paradoxical consequences of medical diagnosis. J Appl Soc Psychol, 18, 473–490.
Ditto, P. H., Danks, J. H., Smucker, W. D., Bookwala, J., Coppola, K. M. et al (2001). Advanced directives as acts of communication. Arch Intern Med, 161, 421–430.
Ditto, P. H., and Jemmott, J. B. (1989). From rarity to evaluative extremity: effects of prevalence information on the evaluation of positive and negative characteristics. J Pers Soc Psychol, 57, 16–26.
Fagerlin, A., Ditto, P. H., Danks, J. H., Houts, R. M., and Smucker, W. M. (2001). Projection in surrogate decisions about life-sustaining medical treatments. Health Psychol, 20, 166–175.
Festinger, L. (1953). Laboratory experiments. In L. Festinger & D. Katz (Eds.), Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences (pp. 136–172). New York: Dryden Press.
Funder, D. C. (1995). On the accuracy of personality judgment: a realistic approach. Psychol Rev, 102, 652–670.
Gaab, J., Rohleder, N., Heitz, V., Engert, V., Schad, T. et al (2005). Stress-induced changes in LPS-induced pro-inflammatory cytokine production in chronic fatigue syndrome. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 30, 188–98.
Giese-Davis, J., Wilhelm, F. H., Conrad, A., Abercrombie, H. C., Sephton, S. et al (2006). Depression and stress reactivity in metastatic breast cancer. Psychosom Med, 68, 675–683.
Glass, D. (1977). Behavior Patterns, Stress, and Coronary Disease. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hardy, J. H., and Smith, T. W. (1988). Cynical hostility and vulnerability to disease: social support, life stress, and physiological response to conflict. Health Psychol, 7, 447–459.
Heim, C., Newport, D. J., Heit, S., Graham, Y. P., Wilcox, M. et al (2000). Pituitary-adrenal and autonomic responses to stress in women after sexual and physical abuse in childhood. JAMA, 284, 592–597.
Holmes, T. H., and Rahe, R. H. (1967). The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. J Psychosom Res, 11, 213–218.
House, J. S. (1981). Work Stress and Social Support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
House, J. S., Landis, K. R., and Umberson, D. (1988). Social relationships and health. Science, 241, 540–545.
Jemmott, J. B., Ditto, P. H., and Croyle, R. T. (1986). Judging health status: effects of perceived prevalence and personal relevance. J Pers Soc Psychol, 50, 899–905.
Kamarck, T., Annunziato, B., and Amateau, L. M. (1995). Affiliation moderates the effects of social threat on stress-related cardiovascular responses: boundary conditions for a laboratory model of social support. Psychosom Med, 57, 183–194.
Kamarck, T. W., Janicki, D. L.; Shiffman, S., Polk, D., Muldoon, M. F. et al (2002). Psychosocial demands and ambulatory blood pressure: a field assessment approach. Physiol Behav, 77, 699–704.
Kamarck, T. W., Manuck, S. B., and Jennings, J. R. (1990). Social support reduces cardiovascular reactivity to psychological challenge: a laboratory model. Psychosom Med, 52, 42–58.
Kaplan, G., Salonen, J., Cohen, R., Brand, R., Syme, L. et al (1988). Social connections and mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular disease: prospective evidence from Eastern Finland. Am J Epidemiol, 128, 370–380.
Kirschbaum, C., and Hellhammer, D. (2000). The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health: Salivary Cortisol and Challenge Tests. Retrieved April 1st, 2009, from http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Allostatic/notebook/challenge.html.
Kirschbaum, C., Pirke, K. M., and Hellhammer, D. H. (1993). The ‘Trier Social Stress Test’—a tool for investigating psychobiological stress responses in a laboratory setting. Neuropsychobiology, 28, 76–81.
Kirschbaum, C., Prüssner, J., Gaab, J., Schommer, N., Lintz, D. et al (1995). Persistent high cortisol responses to repeated psychological stress in a subpopulation of healthy men. Psychosom Med, 57, 468–474.
Kirschbaum, C., Wüst, S., and Hellhammer, D. H. (1992). Consistent sex differences in cortisol responses to psychological stress. Psychosom Med, 54, 648–657.
Kors, D. J., Linden, W., and Gerin, W. (1997). Evaluation interferes with social support: effects on cardiovascular stress reactivity in women. J Soc Clin Psychol, 16, 1–23.
Krantz, D. S., and Manuck, S. B. (1984). Acute psychophysiological reactivity and risk of cardiovascular disease: A review and methodologic critique. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 435–464.
Krueger, J., and Clement, R. W. (1997). Estimates of social consensus by majorities and minorities: the case of social perception. Pers Soc Psychol Rev, 1, 299–313.
Kudielka, B. M., Buske-Kirschbaum, A., Hellhammer, D. H., and Kirschbaum, C. (2004b). HPA axis responses to laboratory psychosocial stress in healthy elderly adults, younger adults, and children: impact of age and gender. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 29, 83–98.
Kudielka, B. M., Hellhammer, D. H., Kirschbaum, C. (2007). Ten years of research with the Trier Social Tress Test-revisited. In E. Harmon-Jones & P. Winkielman (Eds.), Social neuroscience: Integrating biological and psychological explanations of social behavior (pp. 56–83). New York: Guilford Press.
Lazarus, R. S., and Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer.
Lepore, S. J., Mata, K. A., and Evans, G. W. (1993). Social support lowers cardiovascular reactivity to an acute stressor. Psychosom Med, 55, 518–524.
Lovallo, W. R. (2005). Stress and Health: Biological and Psychological Interactions, 2nd Ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Manuck, S. B., Muldoon, M. F., Kaplan, J. R., Adams, M. R., and Polefrone, J. M. (1989). Coronary artery atherosclerosis and cardiac response to stress in cynomolgus monkeys. In A. W. Siegman & T. M. Dembroski (Eds.), In Search of Coronary-Prone Behavior (pp. 207–228). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Matthews, K. A. et al (Eds.). (1986). Handbook of Stress, Reactivity and Cardiovascular Disease. New York: Wiley.
Mechanic, D. (1972). Social psychologic factors affecting the presentation of bodily complaints. N Engl J Med, 286, 1132–1139.
Medalie, J. H., and Goldbourt, U. (1976). Angina pectoris among 10,000 men: II. Psychosocial and other risk factors as evidenced by multivariate analysis of a five-year incidence study. Am J Med, 60, 910–919.
Orentlicher, D. (1990). Advance medical directives. JAMA, 263, 2365–2367.
Orth-Gomer, K., and Johnson, J. (1987). Social network interaction and mortality: a six-year follow-up study of a random sample of the Swedish population. J Chronic Dis, 40, 949–957.
Ouslander, J. G., Tymchuk, A. J., and Rahbar, B. (1989). Health care decisions among elderly long-term residents and their potential proxies. Arch Intern Med, 149, 1367–1372.
Ross, L., Greene, D., and House, P. (1977). The “false consensus effect”: an egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. J Exp Soc Psychol, 13, 279–301.
Ross, L., Lepper, M., and Hubbard, M. (1975). Perseverance in self perception and social perception: biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm. J Pers Soc Psychol, 32, 880–892.
Schachter, S. (1971a). Emotion, Obesity, and Crime. New York: Academic Press.
Schachter, S. (1971b). Some extraordinary facts about obese humans and rats. Am Psychol, 26, 129–144.
Seckler, A. B., Meier, D. E., Mulvihill, M., and Cammer-Paris, B. E. (1991). Substituted judgment: how accurate are proxy predictors? Ann Intern Med, 115, 92–98.
Seeman, T. E., and Syme, S. L. (1987). Social networks and coronary artery disease: a comparison of the structure and function of social relations as predictors of disease. Psychosom Med, 49, 341–354.
Sheffield, D., and Carroll, D. (1994). Social support and cardiovascular reactions to active laboratory stressors. Psychol Health, 9, 305–316.
Smith, T. W. (1992). Hostility and health: current status of a psychosomatic hypothesis. Health Psychol, 11, 139–150.
Smith, T. W., and Allred, K. D. (1989). Blood pressure reactivity during social interaction in high and low cynical hostile men. J Behav Med, 11, 135–143.
Suarez, E. C., Harlan, E., Peoples, M. C., and Williams, R. B. (1993). Cardiovascular and emotional responses in women: the role of hostility and harassment. Health Psychol, 12, 459–468.
Suarez, E. C., Kuhn, C. M., Schanberg, S. M., Williams, R. B., and Zimmerman, E. A. (1998). Neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and emotional responses of hostile men: the role of interpersonal challenge. Psychosom Med, 60, 78–88.
Suarez, E. C., and Williams, R. B. (1989). Situational determinants of cardiovascular and emotional reactivity in high and low hostile men. Psychosom Med, 51, 404–418.
Suarez, E. C., and Williams, R. B. (1990). The relationships between dimensions of hostility and cardiovascular reactivity as a function of task characteristics. Psychosom Med, 52, 558–570.
Suls, J., and Rothman, A. (2004). Evolution of the biopsychosocial model: prospects and challenges. Health Psychol, 23, 119–125.
Suls, J., and Wallston, K. A. (Eds.). (2003). Social Psychological Foundations of Health and Illness. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Suls, J., and Wan, C. K. (1993). The relationship between trait hostility and cardiovascular reactivity: a quantitative review and analysis. Psychophysiology, 30, 615–626.
Taylor, C. B., Conrad, A., Wilhelm, F. H., Neri, E., DeLorenzo, A. et al (2006). Psychophysiological and cortisol responses to psychological stress in depressed and nondepressed older men and women with elevated cardiovascular disease risk. Psychosom Med, 68, 538–546.
Taylor, S. E., Lichtman, R. R., and Wood, J. V. (1984). Attributions, beliefs about control, and adjustment to breast cancer. J Pers Soc Psychol, 46, 489–502.
Uchino, B. N., Cacioppo, J. T., and Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996). The relationship between social support and physiological processes. A review with emphasis on underlying mechanisms and implications for health. Psychol Bull, 119, 488–531.
Weidner, G., Friend, R., Ficarrotto, T. J., and Mendell, N. R. (1989). Hostility and cardiovascular reactivity to stress in women and men. Psychosom Med, 51, 36–45.
Wiesli, P., Schmid, C., Kerwer, O., Nigg-Koch, C., Klaghofer, R. et al (2005). Acute psychological stress affects glucose concentrations in patients with type 1 diabetes following food intake but not in the fasting state. Diabetes Care, 28, 1910–1915.
Williams, R. B., Barefoot, J. C., and Shekelle, R. B. (1985). The health consequences of hostility. In M. A. Chesney & R. H. Rosenman (Eds.), Anger and Hostility in Cardiovascular and Behavioral Disorders (pp. 173–186). Washington, DC: Hemishpere.
Young, E. A., Abelson, J. L., and Cameron, O. G. (2004). Effect of comorbid anxiety disorders on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis response to a social stressor in major depression. Biol Psychiatry, 56, 113–120.
Zola, I. K. (1966). Culture and symptoms—an analysis of patients’ presenting complaints. Am Sociol Rev, 31, 615–630.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Suls, J., Howren, M.B. (2010). Experimental Approaches to Social Interaction for the Behavioral Medicine Toolbox. In: Steptoe, A. (eds) Handbook of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09488-5_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09488-5_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-09487-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-09488-5
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)