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Risk. Worry about a health event is likely to
be related to one's appraisal of risk concerning that event.
Indeed, Slovic
(1987)
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Slovic, P. (1987). The perception of risk. Science, 236,
280-285. has proposed that the concept of risk
has many dimensions, one of which is represented by affective
terms such as dread (also see Weinstein,
2003
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Weinstein, N. (2003). Conceptualizing and measuring risk perceptions.
Paper presented to a Workshop on Conceptualizing (and Measuring)
Perceived Risk. http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/conceptual.html
). However, empirically, risk and worry are not highly
related-data from many different health areas results in a
relationship of around r = .30 (McCaul
& Mullens, 2003
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McCaul, K.D., & Mullens, A.B. (2003). Affect, Thought, and
Self-Protective Health Behavior: The Case of Worry and Cancer
Screening. In J. Suls and K. Wallston (Eds.), Social Psychological
Foundations of Health and Illness, Blackwell: Malden,
MA. ). Moreover, each variable may independently contribute
to health behaviors (Moser,
McCaul, Peters, Nelson, & Marcus, 2005
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Moser, R.P., McCaul, K.D., Peters, E., Nelson, W., & Marcus,
S. (2005). Risk and worry as predictors of cancer health-protective
actions: Data from the Health Interview National Trends Survey
(HINTS). Unpublished manuscript, National Cancer Institute.
). In short, risk and worry are similar but by no means
identical.
Fear. Most theorists would agree that worry
and fear are different constructs with the latter term reserved
for brief but intense emotional episodes (Russell
& Barrett, 1999
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Russell, J.A., & Barrett, L.F. (1999). Core affect, prototypical
emotional episodes, and other things called emotion:
Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 76, 805-819. ). Worry, in contrast,
is typically carried out over time, and the affect attached
to worry is much more modest than for fear. A person could
worry about cancer for several consecutive minutes many times
during a single day; it is unlikely that one would experience
full-blown fear that frequently. That said, fear and worry
do share some similar features. In particular, persons who
are afraid feel that they do not have control over a situation,
and they are uncertain about how the situation is likely to
turn out (Lerner
& Keltner, 2000
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Lerner, J.S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward
a model of emotion- specific influences on judgment and choice.
Cognition and Emotion, 14, 473-493. ). Similar
feelings characterize worried individuals (Borkovec
et al., 1983
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Borkovec, T.D., Robinson, E., Pruzinsky, T., & Dupree, J.A.
(1983). Preliminary exploration of worry: Some characteristics
and processes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23,
481-482. ).
Other feelings. Finally, it is worth noting
that worry is one of many affective responses to health outcomes
that could be assessed. As one example, some decision scientists
have studied the construct of regret, feelings that one might
have either after selecting one decision alternative vs. another
or while anticipating making a decision. Some data suggest
that regret may be a more powerful predictor of self-protective
behavior (getting a flu immunization) than worry (see Chapman
& Coups, in press
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Chapman, G.B., & Coups, E.J. (in press). Emotions and preventive
health behavior: worry, regret, and influenza vaccination.
Health Psychology. ; Weinstein
et al., 2005
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Citation needed ). The overall point, however, is that
feelings matter and deserve attention to better understand
self-protective health behaviors.
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