OBJECTIVE: To test a hypothesis derived from H. Leventhal, D. Meyer, and D. Nerenz's (1980) commonsense model that people possess implicit schemas for specific illnesses. DESIGN: A 2 (illness vs. neutral shopping prime) x 2 (illness-related vs. control word) mixed design with repeated measures on the second factor. Participants primed for the common cold (Experiment 1) and cardiovascular disease (Experiment 2) were compared with participants receiving a neutral shopping prime on a modified Stroop color naming task. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Attentional bias to illness related words was calculated as the difference between response latencies to illness words and neutral words under the prime conditions. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, participants primed with common cold showed a response bias to words related to the common cold but not to words related to cardiovascular disease. Attentional bias among participants primed for common cold was significantly correlated with explicit illness representations assessed by the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire. Experiment 2 replicated the findings in a different illness domain. CONCLUSION: Illness-specific illness schemas can be activated.
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