ArticleHealth psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association2020
Affect variability and inflammatory markers in midlife adults.
Article in Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Examining daily affect variability by individual differences among a diverse community sample.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Higher loneliness is associated with greater positive and negative emotion instability in everyday life.Cognition & emotion · 2026Article
- Longitudinal profiles of affect dynamics in middle and later life: A latent transition analysis.Psychology and aging · 2026Article
- Associations between affect variability, mean affect, and mental health among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of American college health : J of ACH · 2025Article
- Greater negative affective responsivity to daily stressors is positively related to urinary norepinephrine excretion in middle-aged adults.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2025Article
- Attention-related impairment and contributing neuroinflammatory signalling in the prefrontal cortex of perinatal nicotine-exposed mice.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Article
- Moving toward affective immunology: Legacy and future directions.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Mean Affect Moderates the Association between Affect Variability and Mental Health.Affective science · 2024Article
- Inflammatory Markers and Brain Volume in Patients with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Mean affect and affect variability may interact to predict inflammation.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2023Article
- Daily Stressors, Emotion Dynamics, and Inflammation in the MIDUS Cohort.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2022Article
- Daily Food Insecurity Predicts Lower Positive and Higher Negative Affect: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
- Associations Between Intraindividual Variability in Sleep and Daily Positive Affect.Affective science · 2022Article
- The Mediating Role of Daily Affect Dynamics in Bidirectional and Longitudinal Associations Between Depressive Symptoms and Inflammation.Biopsychosocial science and medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveHigher affect variability (the extent to which individuals vary in their affect over time) has been associated with poorer health indicators, but associations with inflammation are less well understood. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether affect variability was associated with inflammation in ways consistent with the stability theory or the fragile positive affect theory, and whether associations were linear or nonlinear.
methodIn a racially diverse sample (N = 231; Aged 25-65; 65% female; 62% Black; 25% Hispanic), we examined whether positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) variability exhibited linear or quadratic associations with circulating inflammatory cytokines (a composite measure comprised of IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ), and C-reactive protein (CRP) and whether person-mean affect moderated these associations. Affective states were assessed using ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) 5 times per day for 2 weeks, with a blood draw at the end of the EMA period. Individual standard deviations of affective states indexed affect variability.
resultsA quadratic association indicated that moderate NA variability was associated with lower CRP. There was evidence of significant moderation by linear associations with PA only: For those with higher person-mean PA, PA variability was positively associated with the cytokine composite. Both person-mean PA and person-mean NA moderated quadratic associations, such that for those with high person-mean affect, both high and low affect variability was associated with systemic inflammation.
conclusionResults are in line with fragile affect theory suggesting that associations between affect variability and health indicators may vary by person-mean affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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