Handbook of Social Comparison

This volume will provide an authoritative, state of the art overview of the field of intergroup processes. The volume is divided into nine major sections on cognition, motivation, emotion, communication and social influence, changing intergroup relations, social comparison, self-identity, methods and applications.

This handbook describes the ways in which society shapes the mental health of its members and further shapes the lives of those who have been identified as mentally ill.
With regards to the social origins of mental health, this handbook covers both the social conditions that lead to the behavior defined as mental illness and the way in which the concept of mental illness is socially constructed around those behaviors. This handbook also covers a third body of work that examines socially conditioned responses to mental illness on the part of individuals and institutions along with the ways in which these responses affect the lives of persons with mental illness.

This handbook describes the ways in which society shapes the mental health of its members and further shapes the lives of those who have been identified as mentally ill.