Cross-Cultural Investigations of the Imagery of Cancer in Mexican Nationals

Two studies are presented, both using the Cancer Metaphors Test (CMT) as a measure of the imagery of cancer. In Study 1, the responses of 75 Mexican students were compared with those of 135 United States students, and statistically significant differences were obtained on all four CMT scales, with Mexican students scoring higher on Terminal Pessimism, Natural Disaster, and Foreign Intruder, but lower on Future Optimism. Substantial similarities were found between cultural groups when individual CMT items were analyzed. In the second study, CMTscoresfor 82 Mexican nationals were correlated with scores on measures of anxiety, depression, fatalism, attitude toward cancer, knowledge about cancer, socioeconomic status, and preventive health behavior. A modest but meaningful pattern of correlations was obtained.