Bidirectional Links Between Social Rejection and Sleep.

OBJECTIVE: This set of studies examines the bidirectional links between social rejection and poor sleep, a ubiquitous and increasingly problematic health behavior. METHODS: In study 1, a multiday field experiment, 43 participants completed a neutral task just before sleep on night 1 and a social rejection task on night 2. Objective and subjective sleep, postrejection affect, and physiological responses were measured. In study 2, 338 participants reported typical sleep quality before coming to the laboratory where they received social rejection or social acceptance feedback from a stranger. Physiological and affective responses were measured throughout the session. RESULTS: In study 1, after social rejection, participants took longer going to bed (M [SD] = 38.06 [48.56] versus 11.18 [15.52], t(42) = 3.86, p < .001) and had shorter sleep durations (6:46 [1:27] versus 7:19 [1:38], t(41) = 2.92, p = .006) compared with the baseline night. Trait rumination moderated these effects, with high ruminators taking the longest to go to bed postrejection (t(38) = 2.90, p = .006). In both studies, there was (inconsistent) evidence that sleep influences reactions to rejection: some sleep measures predicted physiological reactivity during the rejection task in study 1 and greater negative affect after social rejection in study 2. CONCLUSIONS: These studies provide evidence that social rejection may affect sleep outcomes, particularly for trait ruminators, and poor sleep in turn may exacerbate affective responses to social rejection. Given the mixed findings, small sample size, and no active control condition, more work is needed to confirm and build on these findings.

Cardiovascular and Self-Regulatory Consequences of SES-Based Social Identity Threat.

This work examined the effects of socioeconomic status (SES)-based social identity threat on cardiovascular indexes of challenge and threat and self-regulatory strength. Participants ( N = 104) took an exam described as either diagnostic of intellectual ability (identity threat) or framed as a problem-solving task (control) while we recorded cardiovascular reactivity and assessed participants' physical self-control. Under identity threat, lower SES students exhibited impaired performance, reduced self-control, and cardiovascular threat reactivity. In contrast, higher SES students under threat exhibited the reverse pattern-a boost in performance, no change in self-regulation, and cardiovascular challenge reactivity. Furthermore, while measures of general arousal (heart rate and pre-ejection period) were unrelated to performance, cardiovascular patterns of challenge and threat were significantly associated with performance under identity threat. Results provide evidence that SES-based stigma influences physiological and self-regulatory processes.

When anger expression might be beneficial for African Americans: The moderating role of chronic discrimination.

OBJECTIVES: Anger expression is assumed to have mostly negative health effects. Yet, evidence is mixed on how anger expression influences African Americans' cardiovascular health. The present research aimed to clarify this link by examining moderating effects of chronic discrimination on the relationship between anger expression and cardiovascular risk among African Americans in experimental (Study 1) and epidemiological (Study 2) studies. METHOD: Study 1 examined how African Americans' trait anger expression was linked to (a) physiologic reactivity to acute social rejection during an interracial encounter (Session 1); and (b) total/HDL cholesterol assessed two months later (Session 2). Study 2 examined the relationship between anger expression and total/HDL cholesterol with a larger sample of African Americans from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) survey. Both studies examined perceptions of chronic discrimination as a moderator of the relationships between anger expression and biological responses. RESULTS: In Study 1 higher anger expression was associated with quicker cortisol recovery and greater testosterone reactivity following outgroup social rejection in Session 1 and lower total/HDL cholesterol in Session 2. Study 2 replicated the relationship between anger expression and lower total/HDL cholesterol and further showed that this relationship was unique to the expressive aspect of anger. Importantly, in both studies, these potentially beneficial effects of anger expression were only evident among individuals with lower perceptions of chronic discrimination. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that anger expression, when coupled with low levels of chronic discrimination, is associated with adaptive patterns of physiologic responses among African Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record

Motivation moderates the effects of social support visibility.

Social support can sometimes have negative consequences for recipients. One way of circumventing these negative effects is to provide support in an 'invisible' or indirect manner, such that recipients do not construe the behavior as a supportive act. However, little is known about how recipients' motivational states influence when visible (direct) support or invisible support is more beneficial. Using the framework of Regulatory Mode Theory, we predicted that recipients motivated to engage in critical evaluation (i.e., those with a predominant assessment motivation) would find invisible support more beneficial than visible support, whereas recipients motivated to initiate action (i.e., those with a predominant locomotion motivation) would find visible support more beneficial than invisible support. Findings from one 2 × 2 experiment (Study 1), two laboratory experiments (Studies 2-3), one dyadic study involving support conversations between friends (Study 4), and a meta-analysis aggregating data from all four studies supported these hypotheses. As predicted, support outcomes were better for assessment predominant recipients following invisible support, but were better for locomotion predominant recipients following visible support. Results indicate that support attempts could be made more effective by considering both support visibility and recipient motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Circulating angiogenic cell function is inhibited by cortisol in vitro and associated with psychological stress and cortisol in vivo.

Psychological stress and glucocorticoids are associated with heightened cardiovascular disease risk. We investigated whether stress or cortisol would be associated with reduced circulating angiogenic cell (CAC) function, an index of impaired vascular repair. We hypothesized that minority-race individuals who experience threat in interracial interactions would exhibit reduced CAC function, and that this link might be explained by cortisol. To test this experimentally, we recruited 106 African American participants for a laboratory interracial interaction task, in which they received socially evaluative feedback from Caucasian confederates. On a separate day, a subset of 32 participants (mean age=26years, 47% female) enrolled in a separate biological substudy and provided blood samples for CAC isolation and salivary samples to quantify the morning peak in cortisol (the cortisol awakening response, CAR). CAC function was quantified using cell culture assays of migration to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and secretion of VEGF into the culture medium. Heightened threat in response to an interracial interaction and trait anxiety in vivo were both associated with poorer CAC migratory function in vitro. Further, threat and poorer sustained attention during the interracial interaction were associated with a higher CAR, which in turn, was related to lower CAC sensitivity to glucocorticoids. In vitro, higher doses of cortisol impaired CAC migratory function and VEGF protein secretion. The glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU486 reversed this functional impairment. These data identify a novel, neuroendocrine pathway by which psychological stress may reduce CAC function, with potential implications for cardiovascular health.