Patterns of defensive responding to health risk information

Abstract

Background: People may fail to effectively process health-risk information by using defensive strategies, i.e., avoiding all information (attentional avoidance), avoiding threatening information (blunting), avoiding personally relevant information (suppression), or counter-arguing. A new paradigm that allows a choice of type/ amount of information was used to explore the type/ number of strategies used. Methods: Participants in two studies (N = 692; N = 705) completed a lifestyle questionnaire and had the opportunity to read about health behaviors. Participants were given a choice of (a) whether to read information, (b) the topic (i.e., different health behaviours) and (c) the type of information (i.e., generic/ personalized, counter-arguing); the type/ amount of information read reflected the type of defensive strategy used. The differences between evaders (read a non-relevant health-risk) and non-evaders were explored. Study 2, investigated the effectiveness of self-affirmation (SA) in reducing defensiveness. Findings: All defensive strategies were evident. Evaders were more likely to continue to blunt, 2(1, N = 372) = 4.52, p = .033, and to counter-argue, 2(1, N = 372) = 5.64, p = .018, than non-evaders. SA decreased the tendency to suppress, 2(1, N = 318) = 4.11, p = .043. Discussion: When given a choice of the type/ amount of information to process a range of defensive strategies are used. People who displayed initial defensiveness will continue to use further strategies. SA can reduce suppression. The paradigm is a useful tool for measuring patterns of defensive responding to health-information.