TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weck, Florian
A1  - Witthöft, Michael
T1  - Context effects in the evaluation of bodily symptoms
BT  - comparing three versions of the health norms sorting task
JF  - Journal of experimental psychopathology
N2  - The illness-related evaluation of bodily symptoms is considered to be an important maintaining factor in somatoform disorders. However, little is known about context variables that could influence this evaluation process. In the current study, participants completed three versions of the Health Norms Sorting Task (HNST) and evaluated bodily symptoms in different contexts (i.e., different evaluation perspectives and time frames of evaluation). Additionally, the three HNST versions were presented in different orders. Bodily symptoms were evaluated more often as a sign of illness when a specific time frame (i.e., one week) was given. However, this context effect was only large when participants had previously evaluated symptoms existing without a concrete duration. Thus, previously completed symptom evaluations appear to represent an important frame of reference in terms of a cue that makes specific context variables salient. The results further suggested that these cueing effects might be less relevant for participants with elevated somatic symptom reports.
KW  - context effects
KW  - Health Norms Sorting Task
KW  - somatic symptom disorder
KW  - symptom evaluation
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5127/jep.054216
SN  - 2043-8087
VL  - 8
SP  - 241
EP  - 251
PB  - Sage Publishing
CY  - London
ER  -