ABSTRACT
Before we began working on this chapter, we conducted a computer search of the psychology literature, using the key terms health and reactance. We didn’t find much—only 10 or 11 references in the last 25 years—which might lead to the conclusion that reactance theory (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981) has not had much of an impact in this area. That’s definitely not the case. In fact, this kind of search seriously underestimates the influence that Brehm and his theory have had on health behavior research. That influence is indirect, and it takes a little digging to uncover, but it is real and significant. Brehm’s work has played an important role in the development of a relatively new subarea of health psychology usually referred to as health-social. This is the area in which most of our own research has been conducted over the last 10 years. It is also an area that we believe will continue to expand in popularity and impact in the next decade, not only because the application of social psychology theory and principles to the study of health has demonstrated utility, but also because the study of health behavior provides an excellent opportunity for testing basic social psychology theories—such as reactance.
