How Expectancies Shape Experience

Book excerpt: In this volume the editor brings together prominent scientists who have studied response expectancies--people's beliefs about their own emotional and physical reactions--in human function and dysfunction over the past decade and leading practitioners who have applied these findings to enhance the effectiveness of pharmacological and psychological treatments. In this book, they extend the understanding of how response expectancies account for symptom maintenance, motivation, and change in such diverse areas as asthma, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, and smoking; they explain both positive and negative mood states and coping. Their surprising findings point to expectancy modification as a key to enhancing effectiveness of treatment and prevention across settings and theoretical orientations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).