In the present study. a critical review was made on the major studies of illness representation, especially their approaches and major findings. The main purpose of this review was to provide feasible research topics. specific methodological and applicable suggestions in Korea. In order to accomplish this purpose. the present study was divided into four sections on the summary of previous studies and future tasks: (1) Social representational approach on health and illness was first presented and discussed. In this approach, it is important to compare and understand the characteristics of the social representations depending on each cultures or subcultures. Especially. major approaches included in the present article were social constructionism. ethnological approaches to health beliefs. cognitive anthropology. critical medical sociology among others. Thus. each approach was distinguished and presented in its basic tenets. (2) The second approach. personal representation on health and illness. has been mainly studied by health psychologists. In this approach. the major topics included beliefs. attitudes. behavioral intentions. and specific behaviors with respect to values. causes. symptoms. identity. temporal processes. treatment/consequences of illness and health domains. Thus. major findings and their implications for future tasks were discussed. In addition, (3) theories and empirical findings on the relations among personal illness representations. health promotion behaviors. and coping behaviors were discussed. Finally (4) implications and future tasks on illness representations are discussed.
The present study critically reviews the recent development of the social cognitive theories on health behavior and also provides some important empirical studies based on these theories. Thus far, social cognitive theories have been trying to explain systematically the process between major contributing factors and health behaviors. With this task in mind, the present study deals with most important social cognitive theories which has been revised and expanded until recently. More specifically, the major theories dealt with in the present article were health behavior model, health locus of control model, health self-efficacy model, protection motivation model, planned behavior model, and self-regulation model on health behavior. Each model was discussed for its unique contributions and its strengths and weaknesses, then, if there were contradictories among models, possible solutions were proposed based on their similarities and dissimilarities. Finally, some feasible tasks are discussed and suggested for future research in terms of theoretical and/or empirical advancement in this area.
CAD has been the most critical cause of death in industrialized countries. Traditionally. smoking. hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia have been recognized as the most critical risk factors to CAD. Since mid 70s. however. Type A behavioral pattern became one of the critical risk factors to CAD. Thus, the present study reviewed selected articles on the relations between the onset of CAD and Type A behavioral pattern, then it was concluded that hostility is the most critical risk factor to the onset of CAD among the various components of Type A behavioral pattern. In addition. an attempt was also made to review some articles shading lights on the possible prevention from Type A behavioral pattern for the healthy people and/or intervention of the Type A behavioral pattern for the CAD patients. Finally. some implications for future prospects are suggested in this area.
The present study reports on the third stage of the adaptation of the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI: Spielberger, 1988) to measure the experience, expression and control of anger in the Korean culture. The Korean STAXI-K was administered to 557 adults, whose blood pressure and personal preferences for mode of anger expression were also assessed. The internal consistency of the STAXI-K scales were satisfactory (.70 or higher, as measured by Cronbach's alpha); test-retest reliabilities for the ST AXI-K trait scales calculated for a four week period were also stable. Factor analyses of responses to the ST AXI-K items revealed a factor structure similar to the original English ST AXI, but suggested substituting several anger-in items that were more suitable for the Korean culture. Small but significant positive correlations (r -.23 to .25) between the STAXI-K Anger-in and Anger-out scales indicated that these scales were not orthogonal in the Korean culture as they were for American students and adults. Blood pressure was found to be lower for participants whose preferred mode of anger expression matched their STAXI-K Anger-in and Anger-out scores, and was higher when mode of expression and anger expression preference were mismatched.
After reviewing the previous studies of the effects of anger, hostility, or stress on cardiovascular disease, an attempt was made to propose a model in which we might understand the relations among anger (experience and expression), hostility, stress, and subsequent physical disorders. In the present model, the cognitive appraisal was conceptualized as a mediating variable between anger-provoking stressors and anger experience. In this process, hostility may play a moderating or mediating role. Expression, and/or coping of anger, act as a mediator between anger experience and subsequent outcomes. In this process, different modes of anger expression such as anger-in, anger-out or anger-control could lead to physical health or adaptation. In the present study, based on the proposed model, we also tried to test the fitness of the anger model with 388 college students. Results revealed that there was high goodness of fit between proposed model and the empirical data. Finally, implications of the proposed model and the present findings for future studies are discussed.
This study examined the concept of stress as perceived by Korean students and adults adopting the indigenous psychologies approach. The goal of the indigenous psychologies approach is to develop appropriate theories and methodologies that are sensitive to, and meaningful in, a particular cultural and social context. From this perspective, rather than the participant responding to the research instrument generated by the researcher, the participants themselves generate the type of events that ate stressful to them, how they appraise and cope with such situations, type of social support received, and the effectiveness of their coping strategy. A total of 235 participants (158 students, and 77 adults) completed an open-ended questionnaire. These responses were categorized, coded and analyzed qualitatively. The overall results indicated that for the adult sample, family conflict was reported to be the most stressful, followed by interpersonal conflict. For the student sample, academic achievement was reported to be the most stressful, followed by interpersonal conflict. Participants reacted emotionally to these stressful situation and adopted passive coping style by attempting to avoid the situation or by self-regulation. In terms of social support, they received the most help from their friends, followed by family members. The type of social support they received was mostly emotional social support. Although active coping style led to better adaptational outcome, the vast majority adopted a passive coping style. The overall pattern indicated a bias towards the emotional aspects rather than cognitive aspects of the stressful situation and by adopting emotional-focused coping style rather than problem-solving approach. In particular, self-regulation of negative emotions to, and avoidance of, stressful situation was the dominant response pattern. Implications of these results for understanding the lay version of stress and the further development of indigenous psychologies approach are discussed.
The present study investigated the relations between job stress and organizational behavior. The subjects were 297 phamaceutical sales representatives (23 domestic company, 13 joint venture with multinational company). The major finding of the present study included that (1) pharnaceutical sales representatives experienced a high degree of stress from the salary, customers, and organizational support factors. Furthermore, sales representatives affiliated with the domestic company experienced greater stress, especially role overloads, relationships with the customers than the employee at the joint venture did. However, employee at the domestic company received higher social support from their seperios and/or co-workers. They· also revealed higher psychologcial tensions (depression, hostility) as well as somatic tension. With respect to their age, the juniors experienced more psychological & somatic tensions than the upper level managers did. An attempt was made to propose a model regarding the relations between job stress and stress related variables, and examine the goodness of fit between theoretical model and empirical data by the method of covariance structure analysis. The result of this analysis revealed that the proposed model was supported by a variety of indicators (GFI-.925, AGFI-.898, RMSR-.054). More specifically, 8 paths out of 12 paths were confirmed, although 4 paths were unconfirmed among 12 paths. Moreover, intention to turnover and collectivism/individualism variables were newly included in the present study, and 3 paths out of the newly proposed 5 paths were confirmed in the proposed direction. Interestingly enough, there was one newly confirmed path (7) which has been unconfirmed in previous studies, and another newly confirmed path which was shown to be the opposite direction in previous studies. The present findings suggested that additional field research be conducted to examine theoretical model proposed in the present study, and limitations for the present study were discussed.
The present study explored the health psychological perspectives on hwabyung. The participants were 80 hwabyung patients who visited 'hwabyung clinic' at K university hospital. Comarison group, matching age and sex to hwabyung group, e<mists of caregivers of patients at S university hospital and W university hosital. The scales employed in the present study were Korean adaptation of STAXI (Chon, Hahn, Lee, & Spielberger, in submission), and Korean adaptation of CES-O (Chon, & Lee, 1992) to measure anger and depression, respectively .. The major findings of the present study were as follows: (1) Hwabyung group in the present study were, as in most other hwabyung studies, more females in sex and old in age; (2) when correlations among emotional stress were calculated for hwabyung group, there was no association between anger-in and anger-out. On the other hand, among hwabyung group, trait anger was significantly associated with anger-in as well as anger-out. When hwabyung group was dividied into short-tern group (less then 7 years of duration) vs. long-tern group (over than 9 years of duration), the experience of anger is likely to be expressed as anger-out mode in short-tern group, while the experience of anger is likely to be expressed as anger-in mode in long-tern group; (3) group differences between hwabyung group vs. caregivers group, based on t-test, revealed that hwabyung group was higher in terms of experience of anger; they were higher in state anger and trait anger scores than were caregivers group. With respect to the expression of anger, hwabyung group was higher in terms of anger-in. On the other hand, their were no differences between hwabyung and caregivers group in terms of anger-out and anger-control. (4) when the effects of emotional stress (i. e., anger and depression) on hwabyung, only anger, especially trait anger and anger-in, showed powerful predictors to hwabyung. The present findings strongly suggest that hwabyung may also be associated with physical health, and thus that health piychological approach to hwabyung is strongly called for in future studies.
Pain researchers who had accepted Sokolov(1963)'s match-mismatch model in order to explain pain behaviors differentiated overprediction from underprediction of pain intensity. Especially after underpredicting pain intensity, the subjects overpredicted subsequent pain intensity, perceived pain to be more intensive, and their perceived pain intensity was dishabituated. And they tended to show withdrawal from pain stimulus. Moreover, it· is likely that the more they confide in thier prediction of pain intensity, the more they experience negative effect when they overpredicted pain intensity. For instance, when the pain is less controllable than expected, expectations of next pain control will probably be lowered, thus people will experience pain to be more aversive. On the basis of these findings, this study hypothesized that the underexpectation of pain control and the overprediction of pain intensity had negative effects on pain responses. The subjects, who were 61 undergraduates, received electrical shock in order to overpredict pain intensity and to underexpect pain control. The results showed that after underpredicting the pain intensity, they tended to overpredict pain intensity. Their subjective pain intensity and GSR were shown to be dishabituated. But there were no differences between the earlier overprediction and the later overprediction groups. And after subject overexpected pain control, their expectations for next pain control will be probably lowered. But after overpredictions, perceptions of pain intensity and GSR remain constant. These findings suggest that the match-mismatch model efficiently explained the perception of control of pain as well as prediction of pain intensity. In other words, overprediction of pain intensity and underexpectation of pain control have negative effects on pain responses. Also, these findings suggested that patients who underpredict pain intensity and overexpect pain control will experience more intense pain and produce accompanying pain behaviors in clinical settings.
The present study was to explore the relations among N, E, O (3 factors out of The Big Five Personality Factors), uplifts/hassles, and subjective well-being (SWB). The measurements utilized in the present study were NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992), The Uplifts Scales and The Hassles Scales (Kanner et als., 1981), and MUNSH (Kozma & Stones, 1980). The participants were 365 undergraduate students (155 men and 210 women). The data were analyzed by the SPSS/PC+ statistical package. The employed statistical methods were simple correlations analysis and multiple regression analysis. Results were as follows; a) Neuroticism correlated negatively with the scores of SWB, but Extraversion did positively. There was no significant relations between Openness to Experience and SWB. b) Only in cases of women, the frequency of uplifts and the intensity of hassles were found to be correlated with SWB. c) Personality factors, not life experiences, were important in explaining SWB. In addition, Neuroticism, among personality factors, was the most important one, followed by Extraversion. d) Interaction between uplifts/hassles and personality improved with just a little more variance the explanatory power for the scores of SWB.
This research was to investigate the smoking motivation of female smokers. Specifically, smoking expectation and motivation were investigated with regard to sex (male smokers vs. female smokers) and smoking experience (female smokers vs. female non-smokers). In addition. female smokers' psychological characteristics were explored by observing the relations among drinking expectation. eating self efficacy, and smoking expectation. Smoking motivation was divided into 5 factors: need for negative affect control (anger, irritation. anxiety), need for pleasurable relaxation (boring situation with non-stimulus), habitual smoking, need for mental activity, and need for social appeal. The main results revealed that there was difference between male and female in the smoking motivation. as shown in previous studies. More specifically, the major findings were as the following: (1) Compared to male smokers who in general expect to overcome a boring and lack of stimulus situation. the female smokers want to control their negative affects by smoking in an anxious and irritating situation. (2) Regarding the relation between drinking expectation and eating self efficacy, the female smokers have a strong motivation as much as the male smokers do. (3) Compared to the non-smoking group, the smoking group is relatively lack of control over eating: the non-smoking group have control over drinking and eating compared to smoking group. The present study implies the necessity of further study focusing on the relation between smoking motivation and the individual's developmental stage, perhaps such as oral stage.
The survey was administered to a group of people (n = 245) who worked at a large company in Song-Nam city. They were asked about life patterns with regard to health behaviors, subjective health perceptions and life satisfaction. Data analysis revealed that, among a number of health behaviors, regular exercise is the most important factor for subjective health perception and life satisfaction in both men and women. For men the quantity of drinking seems to play a critical role in subjective health perception, while for women salt intake was found to be associated with subjective health perception and life satisfaction. The role of salt intake for women's health perception appears to be in part due to long history of education and information on diet for women. The present findings were discussed for the role of health psychologist, especially in the realm of health promotion.