Leonard Irving Pearlin (December 26, 1924 – July 23, 2014) was an American sociologist whose work focused on the

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

. Much of this work centered around the "stress process model", a model he developed to attempt to explain the relationship between

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phra ...

and

mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

. He earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1956. He worked at the

National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primar ...

(NIMH) for over two decades, where he worked with such researchers as

Melvin L. Kohn Melvin Lester Kohn (October 19, 1928 – March 19, 2021) was an American sociologist and past president of the American Sociological Association. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University and conducted research on social structure and person ...

and

Carmi Schooler Carmi Schooler (1933 – May 11, 2018) was an American social psychologist known for his work on personality and structural equation modeling. Early life and education Schooler was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, in 1933. He was educa ...

to study the sociology of mental health. In 1982, he left the NIMH to join the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

(UCSF) as professor in the Human Development and Aging Program, of which he served as director from 1982 to 1984. He was also the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the '' Journal of Health and Social Behavior'' from 1982 to 1984. In 1994, he retired from UCSF to join the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

as a graduate professor and senior research scientist; he remained a professor there until his retirement in 2007. In 2000, he and his wife, Gerrie, established the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health, which is given by the Section on the Sociology of Mental Health of the

American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fi ...

References

Further reading