Early detection and treatment are critical for reducing mortality rates from breast cancer. Yet approximately 1 out of 3 women who discovers a breast cancer symptom delays seeking a diagnosis. Finding a breast lump can be traumatic, evoking a variety of fears and negative emotions, which may prevent women from promptly seeking help. The focus of this proposal is on the ways that women manage their emotional responses to symptom finding. Drawing on theory and methodology from experimental social psychology, the proposed research uses an emotion regulation framework -- ruminative response styles theory -- to advance our understanding of the psychological processes contributing to patient delay. Women with a ruminative style -- that is, a tendency to focus excessively and passively on the meaning and causes of their distress - - are hypothesized to suffer enhanced (pre-clinical) levels of distress upon discovering a lump, and, consequently, to delay help seeking. As shown below, rumination in the presence of negative affect (e.g., anxiety) can lead to a vicious cycle between mood and deficits in thinking, problem solving, motivation, and concentration. Two proposed studies will use two different paradigms to examine the role of ruminative responses in patient delay -- a naturalistic, retrospective study of not-yet-diagnosed women with breast cancer symptoms and a study of intentions to seek help for a hypothetical symptom. In addition, Latino women, a group at risk for cancer delay, will be contrasted to White women.
