Negative Affect In Relation Research Articles

Genes Making One Feel Blue in the Flow of Daily Life: A Momentary Assessment Study of Gene-Stress Interaction

Individual differences in stress reactivity constitute a crucially important mechanism of risk for depression. Because stress can be conceptualized as the continuous occurrence of minor daily hassles, this study focused on emotional reactivity to stress in the flow of daily life and examined to what degree individual differences in emotional reactivity could be explained by genetic and/or environmental factors. Two hundred seventy-five female twin pairs (170 monozygotic and 105 dizygotic) participated in this experience sampling study (ESM). ESM is a validated structured diary technique assessing stressors and mood in daily life. Individual emotional stress reactivity was conceptualized as changes in negative affect in relation to appraised subjective stress in relation to daily events. Structural equation modeling was used to fit univariate models. The best fitting model was chosen based on likelihood and parsimony. Genetic factors (explaining 12% individual differences) and individual-specific environmental factors (explaining 88%) influenced daily life stress reactivity. The demonstration of a small genetic influence on the dynamic relationship between minor stress and affective response in the flow of daily life sheds light on the gene-environment interactions that contribute to the risk of developing stress related disorders such as depression.

The relationship of negative affect and perceived sensitivity to symptom reporting following vaccination.

The processes involved in how individuals attribute symptoms to illness are important for understanding the basis of symptom complaints. In a study of patients undergoing travel vaccination, we investigated the association of trait negative affect (NA) and perceived sensitivity to medicines to reported symptoms and symptoms attributed by the patient to treatment. A sample of 121 patients attending a traveller's medical centre for vaccination prior to overseas travel completed a questionnaire prior to vaccination measuring trait NA, their perceived sensitivity to medicines, self-rated health, as well as recent symptoms and doctor visits. Patients were assessed 20 min after the vaccination and again at seven days for their current symptoms and symptoms attributed to the vaccination. We found both the number of symptom complaints and symptoms attributed to the vaccination immediately after treatment to be significantly associated with patients' perceived sensitivity to medicines and recent symptom complaints. At seven days, symptom complaints were also associated with perceived sensitivity to medicine as well as trait NA, while symptoms attributed by patients to the vaccination at seven days were significantly related to trait NA. At the seven-day assessment, high trait NA was predictive of associating a far wider range of general symptoms to the vaccination. The results suggest that trait NA does not cause an increase in the reporting of physical symptoms in an illness or intervention that causes highly specific or immediate symptoms. However, trait NA plays an important role in the process of misattributing common symptoms to intervention or illness-related causes and this process may help explain the association between trait NA and symptom reporting.

Contributions of positive and negative affect to adolescent substance use: Test of a bidimensional model in a longitudinal study.

Contributions of bidimensional affect measures to adolescent substance (tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana) use were measured. Participants (baseline N = 1,702) were surveyed at age 12.4 years and followed longitudinally through age 15.4 years. Multiple regression indicated negative affect related to higher levels of substance use and positive affect related to lower levels of substance use. Buffer interactions indicated that the relationship of negative affect to substance use was reduced among persons with higher positive affect. Clustering analyses indicated 5 different patterns of affect over time; affect patterns were systematically related to change in substance use over time. Structural modeling analysis indicated that relationships of affect to substance use were mediated through coping motives. The findings are discussed with respect to resiliency research and affect-regulation models of substance use.