The Social Psychology of Health Disparities
- 1 August 2005
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Annual Reviews in Annual Review of Sociology
- Vol. 31 (1), 75-103
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110622
Abstract
In recent years, scholars from a variety of disciplines have turned to the potential psychosocial determinants of health in pursuit of an explanation for socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities. This review discusses the literature on psychosocial factors and mental and physical health, focusing on the roles of subjective status, self/identity, and perceived discrimination. We argue that current research may have obscured important social psychological considerations and that it is an opportune time to reconsider the social psychology of disparities. A social psychology of disparities could provide a bridge between those who encourage research on health's “upstream” causes and those who encourage research on “downstream” mechanisms precisely because social psychology is concerned with the vast “meso” level of analysis that many allude to but few explicitly traverse. We point to the importance of person-environment interactions, contingencies, reciprocality, and meaning. Although psychosocial factors might not explain disparities in the manner much psychosocial research would seem to suggest, psychosocial factors are important causes in their own right and, when considered in a more sophisticated social psychological light, may help to refine disparities theory and research.Keywords
This publication has 162 references indexed in Scilit:
- Wealthier is HealthierThe Journal of Human Resources, 1996
- Token Status and Problem-Solving Deficits: Detrimental Effects of Distinctiveness and Performance MonitoringSocial Cognition, 1994
- Economic Status as a Determinant of Mortality Among Black and White Older Men: Does Poverty Kill?Population Studies, 1993
- Social selection: what does it contribute to social class differences in health?Sociology of Health & Illness, 1993
- Marginal and mindful: Deviants in social interactions.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990
- Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes.Psychological Bulletin, 1989
- Dispositional optimism and recovery from coronary artery bypass surgery: The beneficial effects on physical and psychological well-being.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989
- Black students' school success: Coping with the ?burden of ?acting white??The Urban Review, 1986
- Optimism, coping, and health: Assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies.Health Psychology, 1985
- Cognitive Maps of Class and Racial Inequalities in England and the United StatesAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1980