Psychological Factors Influencing the Reporting of Physical Symptoms

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners routinely ask individuals about their health. We ask people to what degree they are experiencing a variety of physical symptoms from headache and upset stomach to dizziness and pain. Often, these symptom reports are thought to serve as proxies for underlying physiological activity. Not surprisingly, however, we find that although people may report, for example, a headache, no clear biological referent exists to confirm whether or not the person truly is feeling pain in his or her head. Even when biological measures are available, researchers find that the correspondence between physiological activity and self-reports of physiological activity are modest at best.