Nathan S. Consedine
Department of Psychological Medicine
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Discrete emotions and avoidance in health:
Evidence from experimental and prospective studies
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
12:30-1:45 in Arjona 225
Delays and avoidance are critical problems in healthcare. Cross-sectional studies have implicated several emotions as contributing to avoidance but their causal impact is unclear. Identifying causal contributors to avoidance in health is needed to inform health communication strategies and the development of interventions.
The current program of research tests which specific emotions cause and prospectively predict delay and avoidance in health. In a series of studies, participants complete baseline questionnaires before being gender block randomized to disgust, embarrassment, health anxiety or control conditions to complete decision-making healthcare vignettes and behavioral tests. Other studies in patient samples test the ability of different emotional dispositions to predict avoidance.
Across studies in several areas of health, it seems clear that disgust, embarrassment, and (potentially) health anxiety do cause delays and avoidance, but that they do so in particular groups. Discrete emotions frameworks may help identify the specific aspects of healthcare symptoms, treatments, and consultations that promote avoidance, highlight the motivational substrates of avoidance, and thus inform both how we intervene as well as how we talk to people in health contexts.
Dr. Nathan Consedine, Ph.D. is health psychologist in the School of Medicine at the University of Auckland. His specialization is in emotion and emotion regulation, specifically looking at how these characteristics may be linked to physical health outcomes including symptomology, adherence, and adaptation to chronic conditions. Recent research foci include disgust in medical contexts, mindfulness, and physician compassion.
After graduating from Canterbury in 2000 and spending 10 years working on NIH grants in New York, Nathan returned to New Zealand in 2009 as an Associate Professor in Psychological Medicine where he currently directs the Master’s in Health Psychology Program. Nathan supervises numerous PhDs including clinicians conducting mindfulness and self-compassion interventions work among arthritis, diabetes, and cancer samples. He has published nearly 120 scientific works and is an Associate Editor and reviewer for numerous international journals. He enjoys fishing, playing with his young son, and listening to the sort of music that his colleagues dislike.
For more information, contact: Ross Buck/Communication at ross.buck@uconn.edu