Abstract
Although responses to different stressors are sometimes assumed to be similar, recent research has demonstrated that certain types of stress, such as targeted rejection, are particularly potent. To test such associations in a chronic-disease model, we examined how noninterpersonal, interpersonal, and targeted-rejection major life events predicted changes in gene expression and symptom severity in 121 youths with asthma who were assessed every 6 months for 2 years. Youths who had recently experienced targeted rejection had lower messenger RNA expression for signaling molecules that control airway inflammation and obstruction (specifically, the glucocorticoid receptor and β2-adrenergic receptor) than youths who had not experienced targeted rejection. These associations were specific to targeted rejection and stronger for youths higher in subjective social status. Higher-status youths exposed to targeted rejection (but not other types of stress) also reported more asthma symptoms. These data demonstrate stressor-specific associations with molecular-signaling pathways and the severity of asthma, and they suggest that threats to the social self may be particularly deleterious.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
