ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relationship of social stress to specific forms of pathology. It discusses the three social stresses: juvenile delinquency and crime; suicide; and urban disorders. Psychologists and sociologists have theorized about and carried out research on potentially stressful situations. The typical approach of psychologists has been to induce frustration in experimental subjects by setting up a task at such a level of difficulty that failure is inevitable. Most of the research that has been done linking social stress situations to various forms of pathology have suffered from two major limitations. First, the research is correlational, permitting only speculative causal analysis and. Second, the methodology does not include the study of stressful situations over a relatively long period of time. The hostile environment as a factor in potential stress situations could be used in an examination of crime and delinquency rates among ethnic groups.
