Fear of illness in the context of basic human values of adults

On March 19 Pugacheva V.R. took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report "Fear of illness in the context of basic human values of adults".

Fear of illness plays an important role in making health decisions. However, the nature of this fear is not well understood. People may fear disease and injury for a variety of reasons. Moreover, some diseases scare people more than others. What can explain the emergence and development of this fear? Research in the field of social psychology has shown that the fears experienced by people are related to their value preferences. For example, people for whom the values ​​of caring for others — universalism and benevolence — are important have a greater fear of war (Boehnke, Schwartz, 1997). The study, which will be discussed in the report, is devoted to the relationship between the values ​​of the individual and the fear of various diseases. The study (N = 205) showed that the most frightening diseases are associated with the loss of the most preferred values.