When the Social Self Is Threatened: Shame, Physiology, and Health
- 28 October 2004
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of Personality
- Vol. 72 (6), 1191-1216
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00295.x
Abstract
Our program of research focuses on shame as a key emotional response to "social self" threats (i.e., social evaluation or rejection). We propose that shame may orchestrate specific patterns of psychobiological changes under these conditions. A series of studies demonstrates that acute threats to the social self increase proinflammatory cytokine activity and cortisol and that these changes occur in concert with shame. Chronic social self threats and persistent experience of shame-related cognitive and affective states predict disease-relevant immunological and health outcomes in HIV. Across our laboratory and longitudinal studies, general or composite affective states (e.g., distress) are unrelated to these physiological and health outcomes. These findings support a stressor- and emotional response-specificity model for psychobiological and health research.Keywords
This publication has 74 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Intergenerational Transmission of Fear of FailurePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2004
- The influence of cytokines, chemokines and their receptors on HIV‐1 replication in monocytes and macrophagesReviews in Medical Virology, 2002
- Adrenocortical, Autonomic, and Inflammatory Causes of the Metabolic SyndromeCirculation, 2002
- How Do Glucocorticoids Influence Stress Responses? Integrating Permissive, Suppressive, Stimulatory, and Preparative ActionsEndocrine Reviews, 2000
- Functional Accounts of EmotionsCognition and Emotion, 1999
- ROLE OF CYTOKINES IN RHEUMATOID ARTHRITISAnnual Review of Immunology, 1996
- Evidence for the Distinctness of Embarrassment, Shame, and Guilt: A Study of Recalled Antecedents and Facial Expressions of EmotionCognition and Emotion, 1996
- An augmented escape of androstenedione from suppression by dexamethasone in melancholia: relationships to intact ACTH and cortisol nonsuppressionJournal of Affective Disorders, 1995
- Recent Advances in the Empirical Study of Shame and GuiltAmerican Behavioral Scientist, 1995
- The Prognostic Value of Cellular and Serologic Markers in Infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1New England Journal of Medicine, 1990