Scientists Making a Difference Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Section A Stress and Coping
- 88 Psychological Stress, Immunity, and Physical Disease
- 89 A Goldilocks Idea: Not Too Big, Not Too Small, Just Right
- Section B Understanding Mental Disorders
- Section C Psychotherapy and Behavior Change
- Section D Health and Positive Psychology
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
- References
88 - Psychological Stress, Immunity, and Physical Disease
from Section A - Stress and Coping
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Section A Stress and Coping
- 88 Psychological Stress, Immunity, and Physical Disease
- 89 A Goldilocks Idea: Not Too Big, Not Too Small, Just Right
- Section B Understanding Mental Disorders
- Section C Psychotherapy and Behavior Change
- Section D Health and Positive Psychology
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
- References
Summary
I received my doctorate in social psychology in 1973 and began my career studying the effects of environmental stressors, such as aircraft and traffic noise, on children's cognition and behavior. In the 1980s, I became interested in the role of stress in physical health, particularly through its effects on the immune system. To pursue my new interest, I needed to expand my knowledge base. I convinced the National Institutes of Health to provide me with support to train in immunology, endocrinology, and virology. Questions I planned to address included: Does stress influence the immune system's ability to fight off infectious disease? What types of stressful events put people at risk for getting sick? How does stress influence the immune system to increase vulnerability to disease?
During the next few years, my laboratory and others found that experiencing stressful events (e.g., death of a loved one, taking an important exam); feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed; and performing stressful tasks in the laboratory all were associated with poorer functioning of the immune system. Immune measures used in these studies were primarily tests of the ability of immune cells drawn from participants’ blood samples to respond to foreign (non-self) substances. It was unclear whether these stress-associated immune changes observed in laboratory petri dishes represented the type or magnitude of change necessary to influence the body's ability to fight infection.
Does Stress Influence the Immune System's Ability to Resist Infectious Disease?
In 1985, I traveled to Great Britain to meet with Dr. David Tyrrell, a physician and virologist who headed the British Common Cold Unit (CCU) in Salisbury. The CCU was founded just after World War II with the mission of learning the causes of, and developing a cure for, the common cold.
I convinced David to collaborate on a study investigating whether stress plays a role in people's ability to resist infection and illness. Between 1986 and 1989, we collected data from more than 400 healthy volunteers, using questionnaires to measure the number of recent major stressful life events (e.g., death of spouse, job loss), perceived stress (perception that demands on them exceed their ability to cope), and negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, depression).
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- Information
- Scientists Making a DifferenceOne Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, pp. 419 - 423Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016