Aaron Antonovsky

Aaron Antonovsky (Hebrew: אהרון אנטונובסקי) (19 December 1923 – 7 July 1994) was an Israeli American sociologist and academic whose work concerned the relationship between stress, health and well-being (salutogenesis).

During his twenty years in that Department, Antonovsky developed his theory of health and illness, which he termed salutogenesis.

A key concept in Antonovsky's theory concerns how specific personal dispositions serve to make individuals more resilient to the stressors they encounter in daily life.

[1] Antonovsky identified these characteristics, which he claimed helped a person better cope (and remain healthy) by providing that person a "sense of coherence" about life and its challenges; Helen Antonovsky (his wife) developed a scale ("Orientation to life questionnaire") in 1987 to measure it.

Recent research in psychoneuroimmunology has supported the relationship between emotions and health contained in Antonovsky's theory.