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Affective Behavior and Perceptions of Health Professionals

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Health Behavior

Abstract

The first part of this chapter will probe into the accumulating evidence regarding the significance of physicians’ “affective” (humane, person-oriented) behavior for the patients’ well-being. That has been explained by the patients’ likelihood to assess the quality of the treatment on the basis of the doctors’ affective behavior, due to their inability to judge both the meaning of their somatic disturbance and the doctors’ competence. The first part of this chapter addresses the question as to whether this type of layperson’s assessments both of the effectiveness of the technical (instrumental) medical activities and of the physician’s competence are dependent on the physician’s formal qualifications (i.e., certified “specialists” vis-à-vis “generalists”) and on the seriousness (verified professionally) of the patient’s health condition (i.e., chronic disease). The second part summarizes accumulating evidence regarding physicians’ likelihood both to recognize the therapeutic importance of, and to engage in affective behavior as a component of the medical intervention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel

    Zeev Ben-Sira

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  1. Zeev Ben-Sira
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Raymond S. Kent School of Social Work, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

    David S. Gochman

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© 1988 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Ben-Sira, Z. (1988). Affective Behavior and Perceptions of Health Professionals. In: Gochman, D.S. (eds) Health Behavior. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0833-9_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0833-9_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-0835-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-0833-9

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