Resumo

REIS, Joaquim  e  FRADIQUE, Fernando. Desenvolvimento sociocognitivo de significações leigas em adultos: causas e prevenção das doenças. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 2002, vol.20, n.1, pp.5-26. ISSN 0870-8231.

Lay persons in Medicine present alternative explanations, or subjective meanings, on health and illness processes. These explanations coexist and compete with those of endorsed by health professionals. Such competition may consist in an epistemological conflict, more or less tacit, between the professional and the individual. The constructivist-developmental perspective proposed in this article suggests that subjective meanings about health and illness present different developmental levels concerning their openness, flexibility, inclusiveness and autonomy. Within this framework two main objectives were pursued: 1) to identify subjective meanings endorsed by lay persons, and to examine if those meanings can be ordered into different sociocognitive developmental levels; and 2) to analyze what may be the implications of this developmental perspective in Health Psychology.

Palavras-chave : Health psychology; subjective meanings; sociocognitive development.

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