Breast cancer survivor testimonies: Effects of narrative and emotional valence on affect and cognition

This study examined the impact of narrative and emotion on processing of African American breast cancer survivor messages. We employed a two (narrative: present/absent) × three (emotional valence: pleasant/unpleasant/mixed) × four (message repetition) within-subjects experimental design. Findings in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCogent social sciences Vol. 4; no. 1; p. 1426281
Main Authors Leshner, Glenn, Bolls, Paul, Gardner, Elizabeth, Moore, Jensen, Kreuter, Matthew
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Cogent 01.01.2018
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
African American
African Americans
Attention
Breast cancer
Cognition
cognitive processing
emotion
Emotional responses
Emotions
Heart rate
narrative
Narratives
Repetition
Survivor
Unpleasant
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Summary:This study examined the impact of narrative and emotion on processing of African American breast cancer survivor messages. We employed a two (narrative: present/absent) × three (emotional valence: pleasant/unpleasant/mixed) × four (message repetition) within-subjects experimental design. Findings indicated narrative messages with both pleasant and unpleasant emotional content (mixed) showed the greatest attention (heart rate deceleration) and negative emotional response (corrugator supercillii) while unpleasant narratives showed the least. Surprisingly, non-narrative messages showed the opposite pattern of results, where unpleasant messages showed the greatest attention and emotional response while non-narrative messages with mixed emotional content showed the least. These data initially point to the conclusion that attention for narrative material depends on the valence of emotion expressed in the message, which has both theoretical and practical implications.
ISSN:2331-1886
2331-1886
DOI:10.1080/23311886.2018.1426281