This original work focuses on how stress evolves and is resolved in the interplay between persons and their social connectedness within family, tribe, and culture. Stress, Culture, and Community maintains that the primary motivation of human beings is to build, protect, and foster their resource reservoirs in order to protect the self and its social attachments. Stevan E. Hobfoll searches for the causes of psychological distress and potential methods of successful stress resistance by probing the ties that bind people in families, communities, and cultures. By focusing on the `process" rather than the `outcomes' of stress, he reshapes the stress dialogue.

This book provides a unique study in social and cultural psychiatry, carried out in an African-American community in the rural South. Using a combination of concepts and methods from anthropology and social epidemiology, the specific social and psychological risk factors for depression are examined. The author places special emphasis on how that risk is modified by the social and historical context of the Black community in the United States, and suggests a new basis for the sociocultural comparative study of health and disease.

The only book currently available that focuses and multicultural, cross-cultural and international perspectives of stress and coping A very comprehensive resource book on the subject matter Contains many groundbreaking ideas and findings in stress and coping research Contributors are international scholars, both well-established authors as well as younger scholars with new ideas Appeals to managers, missionaries, and other professions which require working closely with people from other cultures

Is life in the United States becoming more stressful? Are levels of stress related to residence in a particular state or region? Is stress in a society associated with aggression? In this important book the authors report on a major research project that establishes a link between stress and aggression in the United States. They first update the standard State Stress Index, which evaluates statistics on business failure, unemployment, divorce, abortion, illegitimate birth, disaster assistance, welfare, and school dropout rate for the fifty states. Using these current indexes, they are able to compare differences among states in the stressfulness of life. They then present new data on violence--both violence directed at others (homicide, intrafamily assault, and rape) and self-destructive violence (suicide and substance abuse). The authors make a compelling case that stress leads to widespread and often lethal aggression. In addition, they consider cultural norms of various groups within states relating to drinking, the use of violence for socially legitimate purposes, the status of women, and readership of pornography, in an effort to explain geographic differences in the manifestations of violence. Linsky, Bachman, and Straus conclude by outlining the policy implications of their findings.

Dr. Murad has spent decades adding proof to his theory about preserving the body's youthful qualities from the inside out. Most recently, as he pored over the scientific data he'd collected on more than 4,000 patients in the past 10 years, he made a surprising discovery: by maintaining a happy, carefree attitude and the youthful levels of cellular hydration we had as a toddler, we can age in a healthy fashion that allows us to look and feel as young as possible. Overcoming chronic negativity and "cultural stress" (the unnecessary, man-made stress we put on ourselves in our attempt to live up to everyone's expectations that leaves us feeling isolated, anxious, and depressed) could be the most effective strategy in sustaining positive changes in overall wellness. People who lost the most weight, boosted their metabolism, improved their looks and skin health, and reported more energy, fewer issues with chronic conditions, and higher levels of happiness all shared one thing in common: lower cultural stress.In Conquering Cultural Stress, Dr. Murad shows you how to:* Say goodbye to emotional, stress-based overeating to shed pounds* Improve your mood and productivity* Lower your Living Age by as much as 10 years * Make small lifestyle changes that have a huge impact on aging and well-being* Prepare easy, delicious, stress-reducing mealsAnd best of all, by following his simple, practical, three-step plan, you can actually build youth back into your cells and function optimally--physically,emotionally, and spiritually.

Health inequality is a global issue. This book examines the problem through an in-depth look at a remote Australian Aboriginal community characterized by a degree of premature morbidity and mortality similar to that in other disadvantaged populations. Its synthesis of cognitive anthropology with frameworks drawn from epidemiology, evolutionary theory, and social, psychological and biological sciences illuminates the actions, emotions, and stresses of daily life. While this analysis implicates structures and processes of inequality in the genesis of ill health, its focus remains on the people who suffer, grieve, and live with the dilemmas of an intercultural life.

A haunting and moving collection of original narratives that reveals an expatriate's coming-of-age in Paris and the magic she finds in ordinary objects An awkward, curious girl growing up in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava finds solace and security in strange yet beautiful objects. When her father's mysterious job transports her and her family to the quaint Parisian suburb of Le Vésinet, everything changes for the young American. Stephanie sets out to explore her new surroundings and to make friends at her unconventional international school, but her curiosity soon gives way to feelings of anxiety and a deep depression. In her darkest moments, Stephanie learns to filter the world through her peculiar lens, discovering the uncommon, uncelebrated beauty in what she finds. Encouraged by her father through trips to museums and scavenger hunts at antique shows, she traces an interconnected web of narratives of long-ago outsiders, and of objects historical and natural, that ultimately help her survive. A series of illustrated essays that unfolds in cinematic fashion, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects offers a universal lesson—to harness the power of creativity to cope with loneliness, sadness, and disappointment to find wonder in the uncertainty of the future.

In recent years the topic of acculturation has evolved from a relatively minor research area to one of the most researched subjects in the field of cross-cultural psychology. This edited handbook compiles and systemizes the current state of the art by exploring the broad international scope of acculturation. A collection of the world's leading experts in the field review the various contexts for acculturation, the central theories, the groups and individuals undergoing acculturation (immigrants, refugees, indigenous people, expatriates, students and tourists) and discuss how current knowledge can be applied to make both the process and its outcome more manageable and profitable. Building on the theoretical and methodological framework of cross-cultural psychology, the authors focus specifically on the issues that arise when people from one culture move to another culture and the reciprocal adjustments, tensions and benefits involved.