Positive Emotional Style Predicts Resistance to Illness After Experimental Exposure to Rhinovirus or Influenza A Virus

@article{Cohen2006PositiveES,
  title={Positive Emotional Style Predicts Resistance to Illness After Experimental Exposure to Rhinovirus or Influenza A Virus},
  author={Sheldon Cohen and Cuneyt M Alper and William Doyle and John J. Treanor and Ronald B. Turner},
  journal={Psychosomatic Medicine},
  year={2006},
  volume={68},
  pages={809-815}
}
Objective: In an earlier study, positive emotional style (PES) was associated with resistance to the common cold and a bias to underreport (relative to objective disease markers) symptom severity. This work did not control for social and cognitive factors closely associated with PES. We replicate the original study using a different virus and controls for these alternative explanations. Methods: One hundred ninety-three healthy volunteers ages 21 to 55 years were assessed for a PES… 
View on Wolters Kluwer
psy.cmu.edu
265 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
6
Background Citations
79
Methods Citations
6
Results Citations
5

265 Citations

Objective and subjective socioeconomic status and susceptibility to the common cold.
TLDR
Increased Subjective SES is associated with less susceptibility to upper respiratory infection, and this association is independent of objective SES, suggesting the importance of perceived relative rank to health.
Fatigue, Susceptibility to the Common Cold and its Behavioural Effects
TLDR
Bi-directional interactions between fatigue and infection with common cold producing viruses are described to describe bi-irectional interactions with respect to psychological risk factors for upper respiratory tract illnesses.
Within-subject associations between inflammation and features of depression: Using the flu vaccine as a mild inflammatory stimulus
Affective reactivity to daily stressors is associated with elevated inflammation.
TLDR
Adults who fail to maintain positive affect when faced with minor stressors in everyday life appear to have elevated levels of IL-6, a marker of inflammation, which adds to growing evidence regarding the health implications of affective reactivity to daily stressors.
Affective Reactivity to Daily Stressors Is Associated With Elevated Inflammation
Objective: Inflammation increases the risk of chronic diseases, but the links between emotional responses to daily events and inflammation are unknown. We examined individual differences in affective…
Associations among depression, perceived self-efficacy, and immune function and health in preadolescent children
TLDR
The results provide some of the first evidence that psychological processes are associated with immunity and health in a normally developing sample of preadolescents and suggests a modified model of a link between psychological well-being and immunological processes in children.
The Psychology of the Common Cold and Influenza: Implications for COVID-19
The purpose of this short article is to draw attention to an area of research that has major implications for the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychologists have investigated psychological risk factors for…
Etiology of the common cold: Modulating factors
TLDR
It is reported that climate, crowding and perhaps female gender can affect the probability of exposure to vURTI viruses, that extant immunological factors and age can affectThe probability of virus infection given exposure, that stress levels, health practices and genetics contribute to CLI risk most probably by modulating the immune-inflammatory response to infection.
Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold.
TLDR
Shorter sleep duration, measured behaviorally using actigraphy prior to viral exposure, was associated with increased susceptibility to the common cold.
Viral challenge reveals further evidence of skin-deep resilience in African Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds.
TLDR
It is suggested that resilience may be a double-edged sword for African Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds, as the same characteristics associated with academic success and psychological adjustment forecast increased vulnerability to health problems.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 49 REFERENCES
Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold
TLDR
The tendency to experience positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to objectively verifiable colds and was also associated with reporting fewer unfounded symptoms and NES with reporting more.
Emotional style, nasal cytokines, and illness expression after experimental rhinovirus exposure
Psychological stress and susceptibility to the common cold.
TLDR
Psychological stress was associated in a dose-response manner with an increased risk of acute infectious respiratory illness, and this risk was attributable to increased rates of infection rather than to an increased frequency of symptoms after infection.
State and trait negative affect as predictors of objective and subjective symptoms of respiratory viral infections.
TLDR
Although greater numbers of complaints among people high in state NA were explicable in terms of greater disease severity, the association of trait NA and symptoms was independent of objective disease and suggested failure to discriminate between symptoms rather than increased sensitivity or hypochondriacal response.
Negative life events, perceived stress, negative affect, and susceptibility to the common cold.
TLDR
The assumption that perceptions of stress and negative affect are necessary for stressful life events to influence disease risk is challenged, as higher scores on each of the 3 stress scales were associated with greater risk of developing a cold.
The Association Between Emotional Well-Being and the Incidence of Stroke in Older Adults
TLDR
Increasing scores on the modified CES-D are related to an increased risk of stroke, whereas high levels of positive affect seem to protect against stroke in older adults.
Anger, anxiety, and depression as risk factors for cardiovascular disease: the problems and implications of overlapping affective dispositions.
TLDR
The construct and measurement overlap among the 3 negative affects is discussed, which requires the development of more complex affect-disease models and has implications for the interpretation of prior studies, statistical analyses, prevention, and intervention in health psychology and behavioral medicine.
Influence of mood on health-relevant cognitions.
TLDR
Although mood had little impact on perceptions of vulnerability among ill Ss, probability estimates of future negative health-relevant events among healthy Ss were mood sensitive and seeing oneself as invulnerable to future negative events was accentuated among happy Ss and attenuated among sad Ss.
Hypochondriasis, neuroticism, and aging. When are somatic complaints unfounded?
TLDR
Data are presented showing that, even among psy- chiatrically normal individuals, the personality of neuroticism is systematically related to the number of medical symptoms reported and that neuroticism-related complaints are best viewed as exaggerations of bodily concerns rather than as signs of organic disease.
Health complaints, stress, and distress: exploring the central role of negative affectivity.
TLDR
Results demonstrate the importance of including different types of health measures in health psychology research, and indicate that self-report health measures reflect a pervasive mood disposition of negative affectivity (NA), which will act as a general nuisance factor in health research.
...
...