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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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Psychological Parameters of Physical Symptoms

James W. Pennebaker

J. A. Skelton

University of Virginia

Physical symptoms such as headaches and back pains affect everyone from time to time. The present report addresses the nature of symptoms themselves and the psychological processes affecting their occurrence. The first section of the paper will present background information on the symptom-reporting process-- e.g., general frequency of symptom-reporting in a healthy population, relationships among various symptoms, correlations between symptom- reports and actual somatic change. Psychological factors that affect symptom-reporting are then analyzed, including the roles of attention to body and sets for interpreting body states. Increases in reported intensity of a variety of symptoms occur when attention is focused on the body and when individuals interpret body states in a negative fashion. The relationship between physical symptoms and moods is discussed, and several proposals for future work are presented.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 4, 524-530 (1978)
DOI: 10.1177/014616727800400405
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