ReviewAnnual review of clinical psychology2020
Social Safety Theory: A Biologically Based Evolutionary Perspective on Life Stress, Health, and Behavior.
Review in Annual review of clinical psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06063174 (Identifying Social, Molecular, & Immunological Processes for Mitigating Toxic Stress & Enhancing Personalized Resilience), which is not on this map. Cited by 224 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Identifying Social, Molecular, & Immunological Processes for Mitigating Toxic Stress & Enhancing Personalized Resilience
Who cites it
224 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 411 citations in OpenAlex.
- Grief-Related Chest Pain: A Review, Conceptual Analysis, and Integrative Model.Psychophysiology · 2026Pooled it
- Resilience revisited: a systematic review and synthesis of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) and its relation with resilience.BMC psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Socially-supported sleep in older adults aged 50 and older: a concept analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- A systematic review of associations between emotion regulation characteristics and inflammation.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Are social isolation and loneliness associated with cognitive decline in ageing?Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2023Pooled it
- Challenge or Threat? The Effects of the Standard and a Second-Generation Mindfulness Intervention with Buddhist Practices on Cognitive Appraisals of Stress: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Experiment Performed in Switzerland.Journal of religion and health · 2024Trial
- Oxytocin, cortisol, and cognitive control during acute and naturalistic stress.Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2021Trial
- The overlooked trauma: psychological violence and its impact on PTSD symptoms.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Stress and cardiovascular disease: Testing a vigilance pathway in two contemporary theories.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2026Article
- Sleep fragmentation and heightened inflammation: A latent profile subtype predicting nine-year major depressive disorder severity in the MIDUS study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- The Revised ACE Pyramid: A Contemporary Framework for Understanding Childhood Adversity and Advancing Toxic Stress Prevention and Healing.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Peer Victimization and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Among Chinese Adolescents: Moderating Roles of Teacher Emotional Support and Parent-Child Cohesion.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Impact of adverse childhood experiences, positive childhood experiences and adult protective and risk factors on health in a statewide representative sample.Family medicine and community health · 2026Observational
- Adolescent social media use and psychiatric outcomes: a longitudinal mediation analysis via interpersonal distrust, sleep, and self-image.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Does cortisol mediate the association between school bullying and weight status in preadolescents?European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Chronic stress and cancer progression through neuro‑endocrine‑immune networks (Review).Oncology reports · 2026Review
- Review
- Can Neuroscience Inform Peacebuilding?The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Flexible ACEK-Enhanced Capacitive Aptasensor for Rapid Cortisol Detection in Sweat.Micromachines · 2026Article
- Childhood maltreatment and mid-life cognitive functioning: divergent psychosocial pathways linked to ethnoracial group.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Article
164 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Social Safety Theory hypothesizes that developing and maintaining friendly social bonds is a fundamental organizing principle of human behavior and that threats to social safety are a critical feature of psychological stressors that increase risk for disease. Central to this formulation is the fact that the human brain and immune system are principally designed to keep the body biologically safe, which they do by continually monitoring and responding to social, physical, and microbial threats in the environment. Because situations involving social conflict, isolation, devaluation, rejection, and exclusion historically increased risk for physical injury and infection, anticipatory neural-immune reactivity to social threat was likely highly conserved. This neurocognitive and immunologic ability for humans to symbolically represent and respond to potentially dangerous social situations is ultimately critical for survival. When sustained, however, this multilevel biological threat response can increase individuals' risk for viral infections and several inflammation-related disease conditions that dominate present-day morbidity and mortality.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.