Self, Social Identity, and Physical Health

Interdisciplinary Explorations
Richard J. Contrada & Richard D. Ashmore

Rutgers series on Self and Social Identity volume 2

Despite tremendous progress in understanding the human body as a biological mecha-
nism, 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 environ-
ment. 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 valu-
able source of ideas for future research.