The interaction of social class and other factors in the etiology of schizophrenia

Abstract

Epidemiological evidence clearly indicates an especially high rate of schizophrenia at the lowest social class levels of urban populations. The author suggests that this relationship between class and schizophrenia exists because the conditions of life experienced by people of lower social class position foster conceptions of social reality that are so limited and rigid as to impair their ability to deal resourcefully with the problematic and the stressful. Such impairment does not in itself result in schizophrenia; however, in conjunction with genetic vulnerability and great stress, it could be disabling.