Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49 ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI SANITÀ Ageing ...

Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49
seemingly inexplicable. Researchers have tried to explain behaviours such as the little degree of
proportionality between the tendency to resort to doctors and the symptoms of which people
complain. There are people, who, even if they show significant symptoms, tend not to resort to
doctors or not to follow the treatments prescribed to them. On the other side, there are healthy
people who frequently resort to health services even for minor disturbances. These two
behaviours can be even more found within a different way of self-representation and then of
living the ageing stage of our life.
According to the model of mental representation, the answers that people give are regulated
by the implicit theories that they develop about illnesses. Mental representation plays a
fundamental role in the processes of response that people put into practice towards diseases and
it consists of four elements: a) the identity, intended as the word label given to a disease; b) the
cause (the reason why we think to have taken ill); c) the time course, intended as the whole of
expectations about the duration of the illness; d) the consequences, that is the expectations about
the outcome of the illness (Zani & Cicognani, 2000). Later as a further element, the treatment,
that is the whole of actions that a person can carry out for lightening his/her condition or for
recovering his/her state of health (Lau & Hartman, 1983).
Other studies regarding mental representation of diseases are those carried out by Bishop
(Bishop, 1987; Bishop, 1991). The author affirms that people cognitively organise the
information on different illnesses and recall them to their mind, referring to general conceptions
defined prototypes (Rosch, 1978), on the nature of diseases, of their causes and consequences.
The prototypes of diseases available in our memory, are compared with the symptoms
experimented at the moment. Later we choose the prototype which best fits the symptomatic
experience we are living. The comparison between prototype and symptomatic experience does
not require a precise and meticulous adherence, but a suitable correspondence bigger than other
possible prototypes. The choice of a certain prototype has consequences both in the actions and
the behaviours which will be later adopted, and in the recall of information in our memory. In
this regard we have observed that the information which best adapt themselves to the prototype
are better and more accurately remembered (Bishop, 1996). From other researches it has
resulted that the cognitive organization of information by an individual about illnesses
influences the way he relates to ill people, and that shows a different way that today exists to
consider the condition of the elderly in relation to these beliefs. The parameters used for
classifying diseases are their seriousness as regards life expectancy and their contagiousness
(Bishop, 1991). The interesting aspect to be observed is that, regardless of the real
characteristics of a certain disease, the perception of its seriousness and particularly its
contagiousness regulate the responses to that disease and to the people who have got it.
The approach to disease representation is centred on the analysis of information procedures
which people use, thus considering health from an essentially individualistic point of view. On
the other hand, Bishop himself underlines the importance of cultural factors on the definition of
categories and dimensions essential for the organization of information in our memory and for
the decisions which people make about diseases.
1.2. Theory of social representations
The theory of social representations has greatly helped the spread of social psychology of
health. Since the first study by Moscovici (Moscovici, 1961) on the social representation of
psychoanalysis, it has become an essential point of reference for social psychology, particularly
the European one. The theory of social representations is characterised by the analysis of the
distinction between individual and social factors. This theory highlights the social and collective
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