Items Vol. 35 No. 1-2 (1981)

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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

VOLUME 35 • NUMBERS 1/2. June 1981 605 THIRD AVENUE. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10158

Behavior and Health: Mechanisms and Research Issues by David S. Krantz, David C. Glass, Richard Contrada, and Neal E. Miller*

THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES have become increasingly significant for problems of physical health. These disciplines have matured and expanded beyond the area of mental health to a far broader area called "behavioral medicine," which is concerned with behavioral factors in physical disease. At the same time, old disciplinary boundaries are being erased; behavioral and biomedical scientists alike are studying the joint influence of psychosocial and biological factors on somatic health and illness. Disease has been viewed by Western medicine as a biological phenomenon, that is, a product of specific agents or pathogens and bodily dysfunction . However, this biomedical model has not accounted for all illness states, nor has it explained selective susceptibility and the fact that certain diseases occur in some people but not in others. The need for a broader model of health and illness , encompassing psychological and social variables and their interaction with biological processes, has been jointly recognized by

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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

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11 14 17

23 25 32

Behavior and Health: Mechanisms and Research IssuesDavid S. Krantz, David C. GlasJ, Richard Contrada, and Neal E. Miller Social Science in the National Science Foundation's Five-Year Outlook on Science and TechnologyRoberlll Bal,f/ad Miller Food and Famine in China-Lillian M. Li Authoritarianism and Dependency in East Asia-Edwin A, Winckler Current Activities at the Council -Research on the 19S0 census (p. 17) -Fellowships in employment and training (p. 17) -Mexican peasant rebellions (p. 17) -Property in the Near and Middle East (p. IS) -Korean religion and society (p. 19) -Transnational phenomena (p. 19) -Request for African research planning proposals (p. 20) -Joint Committee on African Studies: Review of the field (p. 20) -The use of personal testimony (p. 20) -Social and affective development during childhood (p.21) Newly-issued Council Publications Fellowships and Grants Recent Council Publications: A Selection

* David S. Krantz is an assistant professor of medical psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland). David C. Glass is a professor of psychology and Richard Contrada is a research associate at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Neal E. Miller is a professor of psychology at the Rockefeller University. This article is adapted from a report commissioned by the Council for the National Science Foundation's second Five-Year Outlook on Science and Technology. The preparation of the longer version was supported by NSF contract No. PRA-8017924. The Council's contribution to the Five-Year Outlook is described by Roberta Balstad Miller in the next article.


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