Control. Research suggests that an organism’s perception of control during stressful events is very important to both psychological and physical health. For example, cancer- ous tumor growth has been found to be enhanced in rats exposed to inescapable shock compared to tumor growth in rats given escapable shocks (Sklar & Anisman 1979; Vis- intainer, Volpicelli, & Seligman, 1982). Several studies have shown that increasing indi- viduals’ sense of control can have profound health implications. Rodin and Langer (1977) found that nursing home patients given control over their schedule of activities lived considerably longer than a matched comparison group
