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RDÉLYI

SZICHOLÓGIAI

ZEMLE

| VII. Évfolyam 1. szám | 2006

RESPONSE EXPECTANCY VERSUS RESPONSEHOPE IN PREDICTING DISTRESS A BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT

ANIEL

AVID

.D.

1,2

ONTGOMERY

.D.

ERRY

ORENZO

.D.

e-mail: danieldavid@psychology.ro

Abstract:

A recent line of research suggests that response expectancy [i.e., expectancy for nonvolitional outcomes (e.g., relaxed)] and response hope [i.e., hope for nonvolitionaloutcomes (e.g., relaxed)] may be two different constructs. Despite the vast literature re-garding the impact of response expectancies on nonvolitional outcomes, little is knownabout the impact of response hopes on nonvolitional outcomes. The aim of this brief re-search report is to investigate the interrelations between response expectancy and re-sponse hope in generating distress during an exam situation. As expected, results show that response expectancy directly predicts distress; also, as expected, a discrepancy be-tween response hope and response expectancy is a strong predictor of distress. Theoreti-cal and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords:

response expectancy, response hopes, distress

Introduction

The role of cognitive factors (i.e. expectancies) in learning (e.g. Tolman &Honzik, 1931) and the production of behavior (Rotter, 1954) has long beenrecognized, but the impact of such cognitive factors on nonvolitional out-comes is a much more recent theoretical development. Kirsch (1985) wasperhaps the first to explicitly theorize on relations between what individualsexpect and their experiences of seemingly automatic responses. He termedsuch beliefs concerning nonvolitional outcomes, ‘‘response expectancies’’,and explicitly hypothesized that response expectancies are: sufficient tocause nonvolitional outcomes; not mediated by other psychological vari-ables; and self-confirming while seemingly automatic. Since that time, theliterature has grown to support the strong role of response expectancies as apsychological mechanism for producing nonvolitional outcomes in threeareas of research: (1) placebo effects (Montgomery & Kirsch, 1996, 1997;Price, Milling, Kirsch, Duff, Montgomery, & Nicholls, 1999); (2) effects of hypnotic suggestion (Montgomery, Weltz, Seltz, & Bovbjerg, 2002; Schoen-

Biobehavioral and Integrative Medicine Programs, Oncological Sciences

Department, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA

Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University, New-York, New-York, USA

ANIEL

AVID

.D.;

ONTGOMERY

.D.;

ERRY

ILORENZO

.D.

berger, Kirsch, Gearan, Montgomery, & Pastyrnak, 1997); and (3) effects of pharmacological agents (Kirsch & Rasadino, 1993; Lansky & Wilson, 1981;Montgomery & Bovbjerg, 2000; Montgomery et al., 1998; Roscoe, Hickok, &Morrow, 2000). Additional evidence has suggested that response expec-tancies influence memory reports, pain perception, responses to psycho-therapy, sexual arousal, asthmatic responses and mood (Kirsch, 1999). De-spite this growing literature on the powerful effects of response expectan-cies in a variety of contexts, little is known about the components of theconstruct itself. Specifically, it is not known whether individuals’ hopes areassociated with their response expectancies or not.Existing literature has also indicated that individuals’ hopes are impor-tant determinants of the success of psychotherapy, personal achievement,problem-solving ability, and health related concerns (Frank, 1973; Snyder,Sympson, Michael, & Cheavens, 2001). However, it should be noted that thefocus on hope research has been brought onto the prediction of behaviorrather than on the experience of nonvolitional outcomes (e.g., side effects of aversive medical treatments, emotional distress). Although Kirsch (1990)has discussed patient hopes as positive response expectancies that can bereinforced by patient gains, the relation between hopes and expectancieshas not been further developed. For example, it is possible that one might‘‘hope’’ that an impending venipuncture will be painless, but ‘‘expect’’ it tohurt a moderate amount. While such patients would traditionally be as-sessed for their response expectancies concerning pain (e.g., How muchpain do you expect to feel?), it is not clear at this time whether they wouldbe reporting an estimate of anticipated future pain intensity or rather theirhopes in regard to their nonvolitional response to the venipuncture proce-dure (How much pain do you hope to feel?). Although the idea has been ad-vanced (Andrykowski & Gregg, 1992), for a long period it has not been em-pirically established in the literature that participants can reliably distin-guish between what they think will happen (the estimate of future intensity that is traditionally used in response expectancy assessment) and what they hope will happen when predicting future nonvolitional outcomes. It wouldseem reasonable that individuals could achieve such discrimination, butthen the question of the magnitude of relations between expectancies andhopes would still remain open. That is, the constructs could be closely re-lated or orthogonal. Current theory on hope suggests that the construct isdefined by two components: agency thoughts and pathway thoughts (Sny-der et al., 2001). Together, they are described as beliefs in one’s ability to

ESPONSE

XPECTANCY

ERSUS

ESPONSE

OPE

…

produce outcomes and one’s ability to generate strategies in order toachieve desired outcomes. Both types of thoughts are described as expec-tancies for behavior, rather than for nonvolitional outcomes. Indeed, theassessment of hopes in both children (Snyder et al., 1997) and adults (Sny-der, Sympson, Ybasco, Borders, & Babyak, 1996) seems to lack distinctionfrom expectancies despite face valid distinctions in common usage. For ex-ample, examination of the leading hope scales for adults reveals that indi-viduals are asked to report on what they think in regard to future behavioraloutcomes rather than on what they hope for (Snyder et al., 1996). Whilesuch assessment methods have been productive for predicting behavior(see Snyder et al., 2001), these practices may inadvertently further obfuscatethe distinction between hopes and expectancies regarding nonvolitionaloutcomes.The determination of the relationships between these two constructs is anecessary first step to be taken before the relative contributions of hopesand response expectancies to nonvolitional outcomes should be explored.In a more recent study, Montgomery, David, DiLorenzo, and Erblich (2003)addressed some of these problems. They investigated whether people candiscriminate between hope and expectancy for nonvolitional outcomes andfound that individuals can indeed discriminate between these two con-structs. The overall pattern of the data indicated that expectancies andhopes were independent, nevertheless/but related constructs (e.g., expec-tancies and hopes were correlated for 9 out of 10 nonvolitional outcomescenarios assessed). They also found that both stable individual characteris-tics and prior experience were associated with individuals’ hopes and ex-pectancies (Montgomery et al., 2003). Developing this line of research,David et al. (2004) further explored the distinction between response expec-tancy (i.e., expectancy for nonvolitional outcomes) and response hope (i.e.,hope for nonvolitional outcome) showing that this is a robust psychologicalphenomenon, generalizable across various cultures, rather than a meth-odological artefact (e.g., Romanian vs. USA participants).These data suggest that the pursuit of hope as a separate construct may potentially add to predictive models of various outcomes (e.g., nonvoli-tional outcomes). Indeed, now that we have proved that the distinction be-tween response hopes and response expectancy is a robust phenomenon, which often appears as obfuscated in the professional literature, we have tofurther investigate the merit and the possible impact of this distinction.

Re-sponse expectancies

proved to be very good predictors of both positive (re-