Social Integration, Emotional Adjustment and Illness Behavior

This paper first focuses on the relationships between students' satisfaction with the academic and social aspects of college life and their emotional status. It then goes on to investigate how these relationships influence students' inclinations to “adopt the sick role.” Analysis of data from a sample of undergraduates at a men's liberal arts college reveals that the two intervening variables, friendship solidarity and academic satisfaction, are more immediately associated with emotional disturbance and with sick-role inclination than is the prior variable, organizational affiliation. Further analysis shows that lower solidarity and academic dissatisfaction are more closely associated with sick-role inclination among the emotionally disturbed students than among the better-adjusted ones.