Attribution and Health-Related Functioning

Abstract

In recent years, probably one of the most burgeoning interfaces within psychology has involved the application of social-psychological theories within the arena of health psychology (Harvey, Bratt, & Lennox, 1987; Spring, Chiodo, & Bowen, 1987). Work in this area has addressed the roles that social-psychological variables and processes play in the prevention, treatment, and maintenance of health-related behavior as well as the functions they serve in psychological adjustment to disease, disability, and other forms of victimization. Research in the social/health domain has focused on numerous topics such as the relationship between psychosocial variables and cancer (Eysenck, 1987; Grossarth-Maticek, Bastiaans, & Kanazir, 1985; Meyerowitz, 1980; Wortman & Dunkel-Schetter, 1979), the effects of stress and stress inoculation on immune functioning (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1984; Kiecolt-Glaser, Glaser, et al., 1985), and the influence of psychosocial factors on the adjustment of burn patients (Andreasen, Noyes, & Hartford, 1972).