Abstract
In the past, the concept of psychosomatic disease was popular, but lacked good methodological support. So also, in recent years the link between stressful life experiences and disease had become a topic for much research, but some has been methodologically weak (Kasl, 1983). There has been a considerable change in the contents of two edited volumes on stressful life events, both edited by Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend (1974, 1981). The earlier volume was taken up largely with reports of empirical findings and reviews of evidence; it only had a small section on methodology. The more recent volume, however, is overwhelmingly methodological, with a secondary emphasis on theoretical issues. Empirical findings from new studies are almost non-existent. This seems to suggest that earlier studies were more enthusiastic than methodologically sound, and that recent interest in methodology has suggested a more critical outlook.
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Eysenck, H.J. (1984). Stress and Personality as Contributory Factors in the Causation of Cancer. In: McGuigan, F.J., Sime, W.E., Wallace, J.M. (eds) Stress and Tension Control 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2803-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2803-2_5
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