Patients respond more positively to physicians who focus on their ideal affect

Abstract

Previous findings suggest that patients choose physicians whose affective focus matches how they ideally want to feel (Sims et al., 2014). For instance, the more people wanted to feel excitement, the more likely they were to hypothetically choose a new physician who promoted excitement. What remains unknown is whether this match shapes how patients actually respond to physicians after being assigned to them (i.e., whether they adhere to physicians' recommendations more and evaluate physicians more positively). To this end, community adults reported their global ideal affect and actual affect (how they ideally want to feel and actually feel during a typical week, respectively), and were randomly assigned to receive health recommendations from either a physician who expressed and promoted high arousal positive states (HAP) (e.g., excitement), or one who expressed and promoted low arousal positive states (LAP) (e.g., calm). For the next 5 days, participants reported their daily adherence to the recommendations and their daily ideal and actual affect. At the end of the week, participants evaluated their physician. As predicted, the more participants wanted to feel HAP, the more they adhered to the "HAP-focused" physician's recommendations, and the more participants wanted to feel LAP, the more they adhered to the "LAP-focused" physician's recommendations. Participants also evaluated their physician more positively when his affective focus matched their ideal affect. Neither global nor daily actual affect systematically predicted how patients responded to their physicians. These findings suggest that patients respond better to physicians whose affective focus matches their ideal affect.

Figure 1

Study procedure.

Figure 2

Screenshot of the “Meet the Virtual Physician” webpage on the Virtual Bay Health Center website. Left: Physician promoting high arousal positive (HAP) states. Right: Physician promoting low arousal positive (LAP) states. Photo is reprinted with permission.

Figure 3

Top: Effect of participants’ daily ideal and actual affect on daily adherence to physician recommendations; bars represent mean within-person unstandardized beta coefficients. Bottom: Effect of participants’ global ideal and actual affect on positive evaluation of assigned physician at the end of the study; bars represent mean unstandardized beta coefficients. Note. HAP = high arousal positive affect, LAP = low arousal positive affect. Asterisks indicate differences between conditions, **p<.01; *p< .05.