ABSTRACT
Medical sociologists have a natural interest in how people respond to illness. The concept illness behavior refers to “the way in which symptoms are perceived, evaluated, and acted upon by a person who recognizes some pain, discomfort or other signs of organic malfunction” (Mechanic and Volkart, 1961:52). On the surface, it may seem that the nature and severity of an illness would be the sole determinants of an individual’s response, and for very severe illnesses, this is often true. But many people fail to see a physician or go very late in the disease process despite the presence of serious symptoms, while many other people see physicians routinely for very minor complaints. These patterns suggest that illness behavior is influenced by social and cultural factors in addition to (and sometimes instead of) physiological condition.
