Communication strategies to restore or preserve informational and psychological privacy; the effects of privacy invasive questions in the health care context

Abstract

This investigation explored the role of informational and psychological privacy in the health context by examining the relationship between type of relationship (physician versus acquaintance), type of observation (self-report versus observation), and communication strategies used to restore or preserve privacy (interaction control, dyadic strategies, expressions of negative arousal, blocking and avoidance, distancing, and confrontation). It was hypothesized and confirmed that individuals report exhibiting more behaviors to restore or preserve informational privacy in response to an informationally privacy-invasive question posed by an acquaintance than by a physician. The hypothesis that presentation of an informationally privacy invasive question by the physician causes patients to exhibit more communication strategies after the privacy invasive question than before, was unsupported. Finally, the hypothesis that individuals actually exhibit more privacy restoration behaviors than they report using in a similar situation with their physician was also unsupported. Patients reported using more communication strategies than they actually exhibited. One confound to the self reports was that videotaped participants reported the use of fewer direct privacy restoring communication strategies than non-videotaped.