Blunted responses to stress and reward: Reflections on biological disengagement?

Abstract

This paper brings together two largely distinct areas: biological responses to acute psychological stress and biological responses to reward. Research has associated blunted biological responses to acute psychological stress with a range of adverse health and behavioral outcomes; a separate line of research relates deficient biological reactions to reward with similar outcomes. This paper argues that both manifestations of blunting reflect a more general failure in biological responding to active challenges in life that require intact motivational and emotional processing systems.