Abstract
This chapter provides a selective review of the use of experimental social psychological methods to test hypotheses and predictions in health psychology/behavioral medicine. Although such methods have limited ecological validity, they have the virtue of tight controls and being able to test causal relationships. Thus, they provide a complementary and supplementary approach to descriptive-correlational methodologies. Five research paradigms using experimental social psychological methods are described: the Thioamine Acetylase (TAA) paradigm for studying illness cognition, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) paradigm for assessing psychophysiological responses to stress, mental harassment in the context of hostility and cardiovascular risk, social support in the context of behavioral stress, and research on advanced directives. In each section, we describe how the experimental paradigms can refine and bolster findings based on non-experimental, observational methods.
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Notes
- 1.
Of note, Croyle and Sande’s (1988) study took place in the exam room of a student health clinic—a conventional medical setting. Additionally, participants did not self-administer the TAA test; instead, a research assistant posing as a nurse performed the test. The fact that previous results were replicated in the context of these alterations served to underscore the validity of this experimental paradigm.
- 2.
Comparable procedures have been used to demonstrate that individuals likewise discount the seriousness of actual health disorders, namely hypertension (Croyle, 1990).
- 3.
For an extensive review of research in both nominally healthy and clinical samples related to the TSST paradigm, see Kudielka et al (2007).
- 4.
Actual numbers may vary, but primes are recommended to maximize difficulty.
- 5.
Although the studies summarized here primarily demonstrated the protective effects of social support, the evidence is somewhat mixed as others have reported that the presence of a friend or supportive other can increase reactivity and hinder performance (e.g., Allen et al, 1991) or does not differ from those tested alone (Sheffield and Carroll, 1994). See Uchino et al, 1996 for a more detailed review.
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Suls, J., Howren, M.B. (2010). Experimental Approaches to Social Interaction for the Behavioral Medicine Toolbox. In: Steptoe, A. (eds) Handbook of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09488-5_16
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