The psychological profile of the health-oriented individual.

This study was designed to explore the psychological characteristics of individuals how score high on a measure assessing health orientation. The measure was constructed in the framework of the cognitive orientation theory and consists of beliefs of four types (about goals, rules and norms, oneself, and general) referring to themes such as trusting people, control, and enjoyment. The subjects were 176 healthy adults (88 men, 88 women ) in the age range 31–50 (M = 39.4 years) examined in the framework of a health survey. They were administered the Cognitive Orientation of Health Questionnaire and other measures assessing emotions, authoritarianism, locus of control daydreaming, repressiveness, neuroticism, somatic complaints, somatization, and alexithymia. The main results obtained by ANOVA and multiple regression analyses were that high-scores on health orientation also scored higher on love, joy, contentment hostility, jealousy (men only), emotional reactions, positive daydreams, internal control repressiveness, neuroticism, functional—actional self-descriptions, and negative self-references. High0-scorers on health orientation scored lower on depression, anxiety, fear, jealousy (women only), negative daydreams, poor attentional control, somatic complaints, somatization, alexithymia, positive self-references, and self-descriptions that capitalize on body parts, weight, and appearance. The major conclusions refer to the conception of a psychological general health orientation and its manifestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]