''Telling bad news'': physicians and the disclosure of undesirable information

To address the issue of what physicians tell patients, and how they arrive at that decision, this report focuses on a single episode in breast cancer--the event of telling the patient for the first time that she has cancer. This is a participant-observation account of 118 events, framed from the physicians' perspective. It describes how the 17 surgeons at the Breast Cancer Clinic developed, organized and implemented their disclosure policies, and what strategies they utilized to routinize a task they defined as difficult and unpleasant.     

Motivating women and men to take protective action against rape: examining direct and indirect persuasive fear appeals

This article examines the effectiveness of persuasive fear appeals in motivating women to enroll in self-defense classes to take protective action against rape. Witte's extended parallel process model is used as a framework to examine the relations between perceived invulnerability, perceived fear, and fear control processes. Because women may perceive invulnerability to rape, persuasive fear appeals targeted toward them may be ineffective in achieving attitude, intention, and behavioral change toward protecting themselves. One possible solution is to persuade men to talk with women about whom they care. Results indicated that women did not perceive invulnerability to rape, and although there was no differential impact between high- and low-threat messages, women did report positive intention and behaviors in response to direct fear appeals. Moreover, men reported positive intention and behaviors in response to indirect fear appeals.