Self, Social Identity, and Physical Health: Interdisciplinary Explorations / Edition 1

by Richard J. Contrada, Richard D. Ashmore

Overview

Despite tremendous progress in understanding the human body as a biological mechanism, researchers are finding that many aspects of physical health are strongly linked to a person's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and to features of the sociocultural environment. This interdisciplinary volume, the newest in the Rutgers Series on Self and Social Identity, provides a survey of this research, emphasizing the connections between health and an individual's sense of self.

Drawing on psychology, sociology and anthropology, the collection examines the health-related effects both of broad social forces and of individual experiences. Part I examines the diverse systems involved, moving from the biological and psychological systems in the individual to such societal systems as language, politics, economics, and health care. Part II focuses on stress and emotion and includes an extensive discussion of race related stress and of the beneficial effects of disclosing and talking about individual traumatic events. Part III addresses health in the context of personality and development, proposing a multilevel view of personality and describing the emergence of sexual identities during adolescence. The final part then looks at the other side of the self-health relationship by examining the effects of illness on one's sense of self. As a whole, the collection provides a wide ranging survey of existing work on how self and health are linked and is a valuable source of ideas for future research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195127317
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/04/1999
Series:	Rutgers Series on Self and Social Identity , #2
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	9.19(w) x 6.12(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

both at Rutgers University

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Self and Social Identity: Key to Understanding Social and Behavioral Aspects of Physical Health and Disease, Richard J. Contrada and Richard D. AshmorePart I. Self, Social Identity, and Systems Affecting Health and Health Care2. Self, Sickness, Somatization, and Systems of Care, John F. Kihlstrom and Lucy Canter Kihlstrom3. The Politics of Health, Identity, and Culture, Margaret LockPart II. Self and Social Identity in Stress, Coping, and Physical Disease4. Race, Stress, and Physical Health: The Role of Group Identity, David R. Williams, Michael S. Spencer, and James S. Jackson5. Revealing, Organizing, and Reorganizing the Self in Response to Stress and Emotion, James W. Pennebaker and Kelli A. KeoughPart III. Self-Related Personality Structures, Identity Development, and Disease-Promoting Behavior6. The Relationship between Personality and Health: What Self and Identity Have to Do With It, Suzanne C. Ouellette7. What's Sex Got to Do With It? The Development of Sexual Identities during Adolescence, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Julia A. GraberPart IV. Influences of Illness on Self and Identity8. The Impact of Chronic Illness on the Self System, Howard Leventhal, Ellen Idler, and Elaine A. Leventhal9. From the "Sick Role" to Stories of Self: Understanding the Self in Illness, Kathy Charmaz10. Conclusion: Self, Social Identity, and the Analysis of Social and Behavioral Aspects of Physical Health and Disease, Richard D. Ashmore and Richard J. Contrada