The aim of this study was to determine the usefulness of the Self-Regulatory Model (SRM) of illness behaviour [Leventhal J, Meyer D, Nerenz D. The common-sense representation of illness danger. In: Rachman S, editor. Medical psychology. New York (NY): Pergamon, 1980, pp. 27 30.] as a framework for explaining prehospital delay in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
Moscovici showed the importance of the studies done in 1898 by the philosopher Durkheim on the theory of social representations, who suggested that there is a distinction between the world of common sense, including social representations, and the concrete world of science[ 7].
Both resemblance and causal theories borrow on common sense views about representation-in-general. To wit, it seems as though paintings resemble what they represent, and that what a photograph represents has something to do with its causes: what makes this a photo of Fido is that Fido was in front of the camera at the time that the photo was taken.
According to the common sense model, illness representations are guided by three basic sources of information, including information from the external social environment, such as information from perceived significant others [ 36, 37].
Hence, according to the common sense model, emotional representations of signs and symptoms of cancer (for example, fear and worry) will influence the behavioural response (for example, seeking or avoiding seeking medical help) to regulate the health threat (cancer) and to regulate illness anxiety [ 35].
Although both resemblance theories and causal theories begin with common sense views about how representations manage to represent what they do, these theories do not and cannot end there.
The "common sense model of illness representations" describes how patients facing a health problem construct disease cognitions related to symptoms, causes, duration, controllability and consequences [ 23- 26].
According to the common sense model, individuals create mental representations of symptoms [ 29– 31].
One recommendation is that DAs be based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and representations of the "common sense model of illness" [ 88].
And in this city-wide common sense talk we rediscover our old American radicalism, a lot like the long-ago reaction to taxation without representation.
