Department of Psychology, University of North Dakota, 319 Harvard Street, Stop 8380, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA.
Psychol Health. 2012;27(10):1244-58. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2012.666549. Epub 2012 Mar 7.
Pressure for 'positive thinking' (PT; i.e., focusing on positive thoughts/suppressing negative thoughts to 'fight' cancer) burdens cancer patients facing health deterioration. It was determined whether PT exposure enhanced effort, control and responsibility attributions assigned to an individual for his/her cancer trajectory. Within an online blog a hypothetical same-gender person describes a personal cancer experience. 482 participants were assigned to one of six experimental conditions in which we manipulated PT exposure (blogger learns about 'power of PT' but does not try it, blogger tries PT, control/no PT) and cancer outcome (successful/unsuccessful treatment). A 3 × 2 × 2 multivariate analysis of covariance (with personal cancer experience covariates) tested PT exposure × cancer outcome × gender effects on attributions for the blogger's cancer outcome. Results indicate that PT exposure enhanced effort and responsibility attributions assigned to individuals for their cancer outcomes and that responsibility attributions differed as a function of gender. Findings suggest that exposure to the idea of PT may lead to cancer patients being perceived as culpable if they do not recover from the disease.
“积极思维”（PT，即专注于积极的想法/抑制消极的想法以“对抗”癌症）的压力给面临健康恶化的癌症患者带来了负担。本研究旨在确定 PT 暴露是否会增强个体对其癌症轨迹的努力、控制和责任归因。在一个在线博客中，一个假设的同性个体描述了个人的癌症经历。482 名参与者被分配到六个实验条件中的一个，我们在其中操纵了 PT 暴露（博主了解“PT 的力量”但不尝试，博主尝试 PT，控制/无 PT）和癌症结果（成功/不成功的治疗）。采用多元协方差分析（包含个人癌症经历的协变量）检验了 PT 暴露 × 癌症结果 × 性别对博主癌症结果归因的影响。结果表明，PT 暴露增强了个体对其癌症结果的努力和责任归因，并且责任归因因性别而异。研究结果表明，接触 PT 的理念可能会使癌症患者如果不能从疾病中康复而被视为有罪责。
