Alex Rothman
My research interests focus broadly on the how people reason about themselves and the environments in which they live. Although this general interest has led to collaborations with colleagues in a range of areas (e.g., stereotyping, relationships, public policy), I am primarily interested in how people make judgments about their health and the relation between these beliefs and their behavior.
This program of research involves both laboratory studies that examine how people process and evaluate health information and field studies that test interventions designed to promote healthier behavior. Through the use of these methodologies my students and I are able to assess both the basic processes that underlie theoretical models of health decision-making and the application of these models to actual behavior (e.g., condom use, weight control, mammography).
The research currently conducted in my lab can be organized around three general questions:
(1) How do people form beliefs about their own health as well as the health status of others? Research in this area examines how people process and attend to risk-relevant information, how people assess the outcomes associated with changes in their behavior, and how social stereotypes influence the likelihood of recognizing a health problem.
(2) What is the most effective way to provide people with health information? For example, we have been testing the relative influence of providing people with information about the benefits of adopting a health behavior compared to providing them with information about the costs of not adopting the behavior. A separate line of research focuses on how health information is communicated. Specifically, we have been testing the relative influence of health appeals that either directly or indirectly provide people with information about their health.
(3) How do people's beliefs about their health guide the decision they make, and how do these decisions in turn influence their beliefs? In collaboration with colleagues in the school of public health, I have studying this issue in the context of weight control which offers us the opportunity to study long-term self-regulation. We are particularly interested in understanding what leads people to initiate an attempt to control their weight, and, subsequently, what leads them to either maintain or discontinue their weight control efforts.
Primary Interests:
- Applied Social Psychology
- Causal Attribution
- Health Psychology
- Judgment and Decision Making
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Journal Articles:
- Finch, E. A., Linde, J. A., Jeffery, R. W., Rothman, A. J., King, C. M., & Levy, R. L. (2005). The effects of outcome expectations and satisfaction on weight loss and maintenance: Correlational and experimental analyses. Health Psychology, 24, 608-616.
- Kiviniemi, M. T., & Rothman, A. J. (2006). Selective memory biases in individuals' memory for health-related information and behavior recommendations. Psychology and Health, 21, 247-272.
- Linde, J. A., Rothman, A. J., Baldwin, A. S., & Jeffery, R. W. (2006). The impact of self-efficacy on behavior change and weight change among overweight participants in a weight loss trial. Health Psychology, 25, 282-291.
- Rothman, A. J., Bartels, R. D., Wlaschin, J., & Salovey, P. (2006). The strategic use of gain- and loss-framed messages to promote healthy behavior: How theory can inform practice. Journal of Communication, 56, S202-S221.
- Rothman, A. J., & Hardin, C. (1997). Differential use of the availability heuristic in intergroup judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 123-138.
- Rothman, A. J., Kelly, K. M., Weinstein, N. D., & O'Leary, A. (1999). Increasing the salience of risky sexual behavior: Promoting interest in HIV-antibody testing among heterosexually active young adults. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 531-551.
- Rothman, A. J., Klein, W. M., & Weinstein, N. D. (1996). Absolute and relative biases in estimations of personal risk. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1213-1236.
- Rothman, A. J., & Salovey, P. (1997). Shaping perceptions to motivate healthy behavior: The role of message framing. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 3-19.
- Rothman, A. J., Salovey, P., Antone, C., Keough, K., & Drake, C. (1993). The influence of message framing on health behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 408-433.
- Rothman, A. J., Salovey, P., Turvey, C., & Fishkin, S. A. (1993). Attributions of responsibility and persuasion: Increasing mammography utilization among women over forty with an internally-oriented message. Health Psychology, 12, 37-45.
- Rothman, A. J., & Schwarz, N. (1998). Constructing perceptions of vulnerability: Personal relevance and the use of experiential information in health judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1053-1064.
- Suls, J., & Rothman, A. J. (2004). Evolution of the psychosocial model: Implications for the future of health psychology. Health Psychology, 23, 119-125.
- Weinstein, N. D., Rothman, A. J., & Sutton, S.R. (1998). Stage theories of health behavior. Health Psychology, 17, 1-10.
Other Publications:
- Rothman, A. J., & Salovey, P. (2007). The reciprocal relation between principles and practice: Social psychology and health behavior. In A. Kruglanski and E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 826-849). New York: Guilford Press.
- Salovey, P., Rothman, A. J., Rodin, J. (1998). Health behavior. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 633-683). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Alex Rothman
Department of Psychology
University of Minnesota
75 East River Road
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
United States of America
- Phone: (612) 625-2573