Choosing a Physician Depends on How People Want to Feel- Study
Choosing a physician depends on how you want to feel: the role of ideal affect in health-related decision making. AuthorsSims T, et al. Show all Journal Emotion. 2014 Feb;14(1):187-92. doi: 10.1037/a0034372. Epub 2013 Nov 4.Affiliation Abstract When given a choice, how do people decide which physician to select? Although significant research has demonstrated that how people actually feel (their "actual affect") influences their health care preferences, how people ideally want to feel (their "ideal affect") may play an even greater role. Specifically, we predicted that people trust physicians whose affective characteristics match their ideal affect, which leads people to prefer those physicians more. Consistent with this prediction, the more participants wanted to feel high arousal positive states on average (ideal HAP; e.g., excited), the more likely they were to select a HAP-focused physician. Similarly, the more people wanted to feel low arousal positive states o...