LAUSR

This chapter introduces the book and its structure. It then defines the field of behavioral medicine. The chapter provides basic concepts and a global model of stress, coping, and adaptation, as well as models of job stress. Then we learn about methodological considerations in behavioral medicine including assessment of various concepts, the issue of control, the problem of negative affectivity, self-reported versus objective measures of health, study designs, and finally the problem of generality versus specificity of effects of psychological risk factors on health. This forms the theoretical and methodological basis of the entire book. Numerous empirical examples are provided, to emphasize this approach later in the entire textbook.