The roles of inflammation, affect, and interoception in predicting social perception.

"Sickness behavior" is an orchestrated suite of symptoms that commonly occur in the context of inflammation, and is characterized by changes in affect, social experience, and behavior. However, recent evidence suggests that inflammation may not always produce the same set of sickness behavior (e.g., fatigue, anhedonia, and social withdrawal). Rather, inflammation may be linked with different behavior across contexts and/or across individuals, though research in this area is under-developed to-date. In the present study (n = 30), we evaluated the influence of affective context and individual differences in difficulty detecting bodily sensations (i.e., interoceptive difficulty) on social perception following an inflammatory challenge. Inflammation was induced using the influenza vaccine and inflammatory reactivity was operationalized as changes in circulating levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) before the vaccine and approximately 24 h later. Twenty-four hours after administration of the influenza vaccine, we manipulated affective context using a well-validated affect misattribution task in which participants made trustworthiness judgments of individuals with neutral facial expressions following the rapid presentation of "prime" images that were positive or negative in affective content. Interoceptive difficulty was measured at baseline using a validated self-report measure. Results revealed significant interactions between inflammatory reactivity to the influenza vaccine and affective context on social perception. Specifically, individuals with greater inflammatory reactivity were more biased by affective context when judging the trustworthiness of neutral faces. In addition, interoceptive difficulty and affective context interacted to predict social perception such that individuals with greater interoceptive difficulty were more biased by affective context in these judgments. In sum, we provide some of the first evidence that inflammation may amplify the saliency of affective cues during social decision making. Our findings also replicate prior work linking interoceptive ability to the use of affect-as-information during social perception, but in the novel context of inflammation.

Beyond cognitive deficits: how social class shapes social cognition.

Lower social class is thought to contribute to poorer executive functioning and working memory. Nevertheless, lower social class individuals consistently outperform their higher-class counterparts on social cognitive tasks that rely on similar underlying cognitive processes (e.g., working memory and executive functioning). Why would lower social class inhibit such processes in one domain, but promote them in another? We argue that features of lower-class communities (e.g., resource scarcity) promote social cognition via cultural processes. We then argue that social cognition involves partially unique task and neural demands that are separate from nonsocial cognition. We conclude that unique task and neural demands, together with the distinctive cognitive proclivities of lower- and higher-class cultures, can explain variable associations between social class and cognitive functioning.

Impact of Vaping Prevention Advertisements on US Adolescents: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Understanding whether prevention advertisements reduce susceptibility to vaping is important owing to concerning levels of adolescent vaping. Objective: To examine whether vaping prevention advertisements from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) national Real Cost campaign lead to lower susceptibility to vaping among adolescents. Design, Setting, and Participants: For this 3-group randomized clinical trial with parallel assignment, participants were US adolescents aged 13 to 17 years who were susceptible to vaping or current e-cigarette users, recruited from online panels. Adolescents were randomized to 1 of 2 Real Cost vaping prevention trial groups (health harms- or addiction-themed advertisements) or to a control group (investigator-created neutral videos about vaping). Adolescents completed 4 weekly online surveys at visits 1 to 4 over a 3-week period. Data were analyzed from December 1, 2021, to August 25, 2022. Interventions: Adolescents saw 3 randomly ordered 30-second video advertisements online at each of 3 weekly study visits (visits 1, 2, and 3). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary trial outcome was susceptibility to vaping. Surveys also assessed susceptibility to smoking cigarettes to examine any spillover effects of vaping prevention advertisements on smoking outcomes. Both susceptibility measures had 3 items and ranged from 1 (indicating not susceptible) to 4 (indicating highly susceptible). The primary analyses compared Real Cost groups (combined) with the control group, while exploratory analyses compared the Real Cost groups with each other. Results: Participants were 1514 adolescents (1140 [75.3%] boys; mean [SD] age, 15.22 [1.18] years), including 504 randomized to the Real Cost health harms group, 506 randomized to the Real Cost addiction group, and 504 randomized to the control group. Adolescents in the Real Cost groups (combined) had lower susceptibility to vaping at visit 4 than those in the control group (b = -0.21; 95% CI, -0.32 to -0.10). The Real Cost groups did not differ from one another on susceptibility to vaping (visit 4: b = -0.05; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.07). Adolescents in the Real Cost groups (combined) also had lower susceptibility to smoking cigarettes than those in the control group (b = -0.21; 95% CI, -0.32 to -0.10). For both vaping and smoking, Real Cost groups had less positive attitudes (vaping: b = -0.27; 95% CI, -0.40 to -0.14; smoking: b = -0.23; 95% CI, -0.39 to -0.08) compared with the control group. Conclusions and Relevance: These findings suggest that vaping prevention advertisements from the FDA Real Cost campaign led to lower adolescent susceptibility to vaping and had beneficial spillover effects on cigarette smoking outcomes. Tobacco prevention campaigns can help reduce youth tobacco use. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04836455.

Inflammatory reactivity to the influenza vaccine is associated with changes in automatic social behavior.

Recent evidence suggests differential patterns of social behavior following an inflammatory challenge, such that increases in inflammation may not uniformly lead to social withdrawal. Indeed, increases in inflammation have been associated with enhanced self-reported motivation to approach a specific close other, and greater neural sensitivity to positive social cues. However, no known studies have examined the association between inflammation in response to an inflammatory challenge and social behavior in humans, nor has past research examined specifically how approach and withdrawal behavior may differ based on whether the target is a close other or stranger. To address this, 31 participants (ages 18-24) received the influenza vaccine to elicit a low-grade inflammatory response. The morning before and approximately 24 h after the vaccine, participants provided a blood sample and completed a computer task assessing automatic (implicit) approach and withdrawal behavior toward a social support figure and strangers. Greater increases in the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in response to the vaccine were associated with an increase in accuracy in avoiding strangers and a decrease in accuracy in approaching them. Increases in IL-6 were also associated with a decrease in reaction time to approach a support figure, but only when controlling for baseline IL-6 levels. There were no associations between change in IL-6 and changes in self-reported motivation to engage in social behavior with either close others, or strangers. Together, these findings reveal that increases in inflammation following the influenza vaccine are associated with automatic social behavior, especially behavior suggesting avoidance of unfamiliar social targets and ease in approaching a support figure. These data add to the growing literature suggesting that the association between inflammation and social behavior includes both social withdrawal and social approach, depending on the specific target.