Values and Fears: Value Priorities and Fear of Health Impairments

The evaluation of health states is involved in a patient’s medical decision making. This evaluation includes cognitive and affective components. The affective component of this evaluation may include the emotion of fear. For instance, some health states are more frightening than others. However, it is not yet known why. The present study investigates the link between the fear of health impairments and individual value priorities. Participants evaluated 14 health impairments from most to least frightening and selected three valued goals which could be lost in the event of those previously evaluated health states. Participants also answered the Schwarz’s Values Survey. The results confirm that value preferences are related to the fear of different health states. From one side, this link is related to personal importance of value priorities: the most frightening health states are associated with the loss of preferred value goals. From another side, this link is related to value types: the more a health state is associated with a loss of security and self-direction, the more frightening it is; the more a health state is associated with a loss of hedonism and universalism, the less frightening it is. Overall, the study showed that affective evaluation of negative health states, particularly, fear of negative health states, is related to value preferences.

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