CONTINGENCY LANGUAGE ANALYSIS OF CONCEPTUAL MODELS USED IN BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE

Abstract

According to Dekker (2008) the field of Behavioral Medicine is witnessing a more elaborated use of theories to further comprehension of empirical findings, however most of the times the differences among these models are elusive, specially in terms of the methodological consequences for acceptable research to elucidate central assumptions of such models. The contingency analysis of behavior language elaborated by Mechner (2008) is proposed as a methodological tool to compare such models, by means of translating representative exemplars of three theoretical approaches.  Diagrams of the stress and emotional regulation theory (Brown, Katzel, Neumann, Maier & Waldstein, 2007),  the theory on health behavior, health and disease (van Dijk, Veenhof, Spreeuwenberg, Coene, Burger, et al., 2010) and the theory of personality and health (Denollet & De Vries, 2006) are presented in detail in order to unravel the hierarchy of their interests, to compare levels of complexity, and to highlight some practical consequences of each approach.  A visual inspection of the diagrams made apparent differences among the targeted models and lead to conclude that rather than being excluding, they complement each other.