On the value of knowing one's likes and dislikes: Attitude accessibility, stress, and health in college

On the bases of laboratory research indicating that accessible attitudes ease decision making, we hypothesized that freshmen who enter college knowing their likes and dislikes regarding academically relevant issues may experience better health in this new life setting. To test this hypothesis we conducted a prospective study in which students completed self-report inventories of negative life events and mental and physical health at two points in time. The accessibility of attitudes toward academically relevant issues was assessed in the initial session. Regression analyses revealed three-way interactions between attitude accessibility, stress (as indexed by the number of negative life events), and initial health status when predicting health scores at Time 2. For students with relatively good initial health, the generally positive relation between stress and illness was buffered by the possession of accessible attitudes. For students with relatively poor initial health, recovery was generally greater among those experiencing less stress, especially as attitude accessibility increased.