Abstract
AbstractWe asked students, clinicians, and people from the general population attending a public university lecture (n = 401) whether they knew others who (had) feigned symptoms. We also asked about the type of symptoms and the motives involved. A slight majority of proxy respondents (59%) reported that they knew a person who (had) feigned symptoms, and 34% knew a person who had admitted to them having feigned symptoms. According to our respondents, the most often feigned symptoms were headache/migraine, common cold/fever, and stomachache/nausea, and the most important reasons for doing so were sick leave from work, excusing a failure, and seeking attention from others. We conclude that feigning is part of the normal behavioral repertoire of people and has little to do with deviant personality traits and/or criminal motives. Also, the current emphasis in the neuropsychological literature on malingering, i.e., feigning motivated by external incentives, might be one-sided given that psychological motives, notably seeking attention from others and excuse making, seem to be important determinants of everyday feigning.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Law,Psychiatry and Mental health
Cited by
20 articles.
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