State and trait affect as predictors of salivary cortisol in healthy adults

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Summary

We measured affect in 334 healthy adults on each of 7 days over a 3-week period. On the last day, salivary cortisol was assessed 14 times yielding scores for total concentration, morning rise amplitude, and slope of the time function. Trait negative affect (NA) was associated with higher total cortisol concentrations and greater morning rise in men. Cortisol levels for men low in trait positive affect (PA) did not decrease in the afternoon, resulting in a relatively high, flat rhythm. In contrast, women high in trait PA had low morning cortisol resulting in a low flat rhythm. State (person-centered) NA was not associated with same-day cortisol measures. State PA was associated with decreased total cortisol concentration in women. These are the first results showing associations between cortisol and trait PA. Differences in rhythmicity found here are noteworthy given the possible role of cortisol dysregulation in disease incidence, morbidity, mortality, and severity.

Introduction

Negative affect (NA) refers to subjective distress and subsumes such aversive moods as anxiety, hostility, and depression. Positive affect (PA), on the other hand, refers to appetitive moods such as vigor, well-being, and calm. Affect is believed to be the ‘proximal’ psychological pathway through which psychosocial factors influence health (Cohen et al., 1997). This is because strong emotions trigger emotion-appropriate behavior (e.g. fight or flight in the face of fear) and activate physiological systems that both support this behavior and regulate the host response to disease. One physiological system that supports emotion-appropriate behavior by releasing a number of hormones is the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) system. Of the HPA hormones, cortisol is of particular interest because it both supports emotion-appropriate behavior by regulating metabolic processes and is involved in regulating immune function (Sheridan et al., 1994). Although there is evidence that circulating cortisol is higher with greater NA (Rose et al., 1982, Schaeffer and Baum, 1984, Hubert and de Jong-Meyer, 1992, van Eck et al., 1996, Smyth et al., 1998, Hanson et al., 2000), the degree to which this association is due to stable individual differences in affect (i.e. traits) or transient fluctuations in mood (i.e. states) remains unclear. Moreover, the possible association of cortisol level with PA is relatively unexplored. The primary purpose of the present study was to determine if cortisol level is related to the trait and state components of both NA and PA.

Section snippets

Cortisol

Cortisol has a characteristic daily rhythm, peaking shortly after an individual wakens and then falling throughout the day. This rhythm can be disrupted by psychological and environmental influences such as low socio-economic status (Steptoe et al., 2003), stressful work or home environments (Adam and Gunnar, 2001), or chronic stress (McEwen, 1998). Cortisol levels that are either higher or lower than normal for any given time of day may set the stage for pathogenic processes that predispose an

Participants

The participants were 159 men and 175 women, aged 18–54 years (mean=28.8, SD=10.4), who responded to newspaper advertisements for volunteers to participate in a study of psychological factors and respiratory infections. Forty-two percent were smokers. All enrolled participants were judged to be in good health and were paid $800 for participation in the complete study that involved exposure to a virus that causes the common cold (Cohen et al., 2003). All data reported in this article were part

Descriptive analyses

Table 1 presents the correlations among the measures of trait and state affect. Traits PA and NA shared approximately 22% of their variance. States PA and NA shared approximately 2% of their variance. Table 2 presents demographic information about the participants. Home- and work-load have been shown to be associated with flattened cortisol rhythms in women (Adam and Gunnar, 2001). There were no differences by sex in either employment status or number of children. Table 3 presents the means and

Waking day cortisol concentration

In general, PA was associated with lower concentrations of cortisol and NA with higher concentrations. However, one association was moderated by sex. Waking day cortisol concentration was associated with state PA only in women. It is not clear why PA's biggest association was in women. Because men and women did not differ in mean levels or variances of state PA, neither the magnitude nor variation in the affective responses can account for the sex differences. It may be that men and women have

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH50429) and by the MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health. Sheldon Cohen's participation was supported by a Senior Scientist Award (K05 MH00721) and Deborah Polk's was supported by a Training Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH19953). We thank J. Schlarb and the participants for their contribution to the research.

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