"We have looked at different ways of providing information, of framing information, what types of information; and by and large, if you give monitors more information, more details, more depth, especially if it comes along with more reassurance and more positive framing, they fare better. Whether you're looking at getting them to get a mammogram or you're looking at how much stress and pain they feel from a procedure; and it's the other way for a blunter.

"If you give them just what they need to know without a lot of extra detail, without a lot of extra depth, without a lot of the specifics, and the numbers and the graphics and so forth, then they fare better; which is surprising to a lot of people, particularly in the health care system at this time, which is very dear to: if you don't want to know everything, what's wrong with you, you know. And I travel a lot and did some cross-cultural studies in Italy and Japan and so forth, and it's sort of the opposite there.

"Their monitors have more barriers to getting their needs satisfied, and the blunter's a much more ideal kind of patient type to be because that's what the system supports. Whereas here, monitors often are made... I mean, blunters are often made to feel that they ought to turn themselves into monitors because it's inappropriate if they don't."