Beliefs about Cancer,Heart Disease,and Their Victims

Abstract

Of the considerable recent research by social scientists in the area of health and medicine, most has been devoted to examination of individuals' health and their own health-related behaviors and beliefs. Little attention has been paid to the reactions of people to ill others. The just-world hypothesis suggests that these reactions are predictable: that as the severity of illness increases, the victim should receive increasing derogation by others. This study examined the failure of a previous study to find evidence supporting this prediction when the severe disease was cancer. In the current study, 73 undergraduate students were presented one of two stimulus stories depicting a person who suffered either from a heart attack or stomach cancer. After reading the stories, subjects rated the attractiveness of the stimulus person. They also answered a series of questions designed to probe their beliefs about these two health conditions. As predicted and contrary to the just-world hypothesis, victims of conditions seen to be unpreventable received less derogation than victims of preventable ones. Moreover, it was discovered that relative to heart attacks, stomach cancer was seen as less preventable, less well understood, and less effectively treated both by medical and individual means.