Jennifer E. Graham-Engeland

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · Department of Biobehavioral Health

There is burgeoning interest in the ability to detect inflammatory markers in response to stress within naturally occurring social contexts and/or across multiple time points per day within individuals. Salivary collection is a less invasive process than current methods of blood collection and enables intensive naturalistic methodologies, such as t...

To examine whether greater cognitive engagement during a marital conflict discussion, as evidenced by use of words that suggest thinking and meaning-making, results in attenuated proinflammatory cytokine increases to stress and wounding. Husbands and wives (N = 84 individuals) were observed during two separate 24-hr visits: each visit included a wo...

Chronically elevated systemic inflammation has a dramatic impact on health for older individuals. As stress-related responses, both hostility and pain perception may contribute to inflammation which in turn may maintain negative emotion and pain over time. We used structural equation modeling to examine the degree to which trait hostility and pain...

Both aging processes and psychological stress affect the immune system: Each can dysregulate immune function with a potentially substantial impact on physical health. Worse, the effects of stress and age are interactive. Psychological stress can both mimic and exacerbate the effects of aging, with older adults often showing greater immunological im...

Based on prior research demonstrating benefits of emotional disclosure for chronically ill individuals and evidence that anger is particularly problematic in chronic pain sufferers, outpatients from a chronic pain center (N=102) were randomly assigned to express their anger constructively or to write about their goals non-emotionally in a letter-wr...

Objectives: Loneliness has been linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes in later life. Little is known about how daily social interactions relate to older adults' everyday experiences of loneliness. This study examined the dynamic associations between social interactions and the momentary feelings of loneliness in older adults' daily li...

Although there is a strong association between depressive symptoms and markers of inflammation, it remains unclear whether depressive symptoms at one point in life may predict inflammation later in life. Moreover, despite extant literature linking sleep with both depressive symptoms and inflammation, there is little research investigating poor slee...

Introduction: There is reason to believe that introversion may relate to different patterns of negative and positive experiences in everyday life ("hassles" and "uplifts"), but there is little evidence for this based on reports made in daily life as events occur. We thus extend the literature by using data from ecological momentary assessments to...

Food insecurity (FI) is a dynamic phenomenon, and its association with daily affect is unknown. We explored the association between daily FI and affect among low-income adults during a 2-seasonal-month period that covered days both pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 29 healthy low-income adults were recruited during fall in 2019 or 2...

Chronic inflammation is implicated in a variety of diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease and cancer). Much evidence suggests that early life adversity (ELA), such as maltreatment or neglect, can increase risk for inflammation in adulthood. ELA may program proinflammatory activity via its effects on brain areas involved in emotion regulation. Of mu...

Conceptualizing physical pain and negative affect as potentially interactive, we hypothesized that higher levels of peripheral inflammatory markers would be observed consistently only among individuals with both higher negative affect and pain symptomatology. Participants were generally healthy midlife adults from the Bronx, NY (N = 212, Mage = 46....

Loneliness has been linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes. Past research suggests that inflammation is a potential pathway linking loneliness and health, but little is known about how loneliness assessed in daily life links with inflammation, or about linkages between loneliness and inflammation among older adults specifically. As part...

Inflammation has been implicated as a precursor to steeper declines in age-associated cognitive decline. Here we investigated biomarkers of peripheral inflammation [basal cytokines, stimulated cytokines (ex vivo), C-reactive protein (CRP)] as moderators of age-related changes in cognitive functioning. As part of the Effects of Stress on Cognitive A...

Inflammatory biomarkers and sex hormones have been investigated as independent risk and resilience factors for cognitive decline in older adults. Many sex hormones are anti-inflammatory and there is emerging evidence that sex hormones may buffer the risk for cognitive decline associated with higher inflammation. However, few studies have included c...

An array of negative psychological states – including depressive symptoms, perceived stress, rumination, and negative affect – have been linked to immune function and inflammatory responses. Herein we show evidence of gender-dependent associations between ex vivo lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated cytokine responses and such psychological states,...

Evidence is mixed with regard to whether positively valanced affect (PA) is associated with engagement in health behaviors. Both affective arousal (activated/ deactivated) and level of analysis (between and within-person) may influence such associations. Adults (N = 121; 25-65 years) completed ambulatory assessments of affect and daily reports of s...

Introduction Disturbed sleep is common among young adults and is associated with poorer health and developmental outcomes. A large percentage of young adults also struggle with low self-esteem. Together, disturbed sleep and low self-esteem may deplete coping resources, heighten to reactivity to stress, and increase disease risk. Yet no studies to o...

Background: People often engage in behaviors that differ from their average or "trait" level of personality, such as when an introvert acts more assertively than usual. These conflicts between in-the-moment (state) behaviors and traits (or misfit) are theorized to have negative consequences for well-being, although this hasn't always been found in...

Sexual minority (SM) adults (those who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual) consistently report more health problems compared to heterosexuals, and they tend to experience excess social stress. Although numerous studies have established links between social stress and clinical outcomes in SM adults, few studies have examined biological factors that may h...

Background: Previous research suggests that positive affect (PA) may promote health and longevity and that one potential mechanism involves inflammation. However, it remains unclear to what extent PA is associated with specific inflammatory markers and whether such associations are driven by main effects of PA and/or due to PA operating as a stress...

Older adults may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing loneliness as a result of stay-at-home and social distancing orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study evaluated change in loneliness following the COVID-19 outbreak, using a longitudinal design and a validated loneliness measure, in a well-characterized sample who are at heightened...

Objective Little is known about whether level of affective arousal (i.e., high vs. low) is associated with alcohol use and whether this relationship differs by valence (i.e., positive vs. negative affect) among adults. Methods. Participants were n=93 self-reported current drinkers (ages 25-65) who reported positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) sev...

Background Salivary biomarkers of inflammation are increasingly used in stress research. This systematic review and meta-analysis provides a quantitative summary of changes in salivary inflammatory markers in response to acute stress. Method The review included 1,558 participants (42 unique samples, 33 studies) obtained through electronic database...

Objective: Higher 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...

BACKGROUND o The trait extraversion is associated with positive affect and social characteristics (gregariousness, assertiveness) o These characteristics manifest in daily life as affective states, behaviors, cognitions, and desires that interact with environmental characteristics 1-3 o Lower extraversion (colloquially "introversion") is associated...

Depressive symptoms are often linked with higher inflammation and inflammatory responses, although these associations are not always consistent. In a recent study (N = 160, 25–65 years, 67% women), our group reported gender differences relevant to this association: In men higher depressive symptoms were related to heightened ex vivo inflammatory re...

Although research suggests that social interactions can decrease pain and emotional distress, it is unclear what produces these salubrious effects. We examined whether older adults experienced lower pain and emotional distress after two types of social interactions (affectionate physical contact and non-physical pleasant interactions) using data fr...

Background: Emerging evidence suggests that higher circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers in blood are associated with higher negative affect (NA) and lower positive affect (PA). To our knowledge, the unique associations between NA and PA in daily life and salivary biomarkers of inflammation have not been examined. This study examined these...

Although research has linked stress to depression and inflammation, the extent to which gender alters relationships between stress, depression, and inflammation is relatively unknown. In theory-driven exploratory analyses based on recent work (Majd et al., 2018), depressive affect was investigated as a statistical mediator of stress and inflammatio...

The number of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adults aged 50 and older is projected to reach 5 million in the U.S. by 2030 (Fredriksen-Goldsen, Kim, Shiu, Goldsen, & Emlet, 2015). Older bisexuals experience more negative mental and physical health outcomes when compared to both heterosexuals and other sexual minorities (Fredriksen-Goldsen, Shiu, B...

Emotion variability (the extent to which individuals vary in emotional states over time) has been associated with poorer health indicators (e.g., dysregulated diurnal cortisol) but its associations with inflammation are unknown. In a diverse sample of participants (N=231; aged 25–65; 65% female; 62% Black; 25% Hispanic) we examined if positive emot...

As bisexuals are the numeric majority of sexual minorities in the US, bisexual aging processes are critical to understand if researchers wish to reduce sexual minority health disparities and promote healthy aging. We used a probability sample of adults from the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) study to assess life satisfaction across an 18-year period. We...

Introduction: Spousal caregivers face increased cardiovascular risks; lab studies suggest that autonomic reactivity to patients' physical suffering may play a role. To evaluate this mechanism in daily life, our pilot study characterized the feasibility of recruiting couples for a multimethod, in-home assessment. We examined the usability of the re...

Objective: Insomnia is associated with elevated inflammation; however, studies have not investigated if this relationship is confounded with depression and neuroticism, which are associated with insomnia and inflammation. The current study examined the association of insomnia symptoms with C-reactive protein (CRP) and with interleukin-6 (IL-6), ind...

In a novel pilot study, we investigated how emotional state is related to inflammatory responses to acute pain among women with rheumatoid arthritis. Nine women completed four 5-hour visits that varied only by manipulation of emotion (anger, sadness, happiness, vs. control); in each visit, acute pain was elicited, with blood draws at baseline, 10 m...

Very little research has assessed how measures of negative and positive affect (NA and PA) derived from assessments at multiple time points per day (e.g., via ecological momentary assessment [EMA]), as opposed to questionnaires that rely on recall over a longer period, are related to levels of peripheral inflammation. We examined how different indi...

Early life adversity (ELA) has been associated with pain symptomatology in adulthood, but mechanisms and moderators of these associations are unclear. Using recall based and concurrently assessed self-report data, we examined associations between ELA, mood, sleep, and recent pain intensity and interference, and whether optimism and perceived contro...

Background Research examining the effects of mindfulness meditation (MM) on emotion seldom considers differences by arousal level or emotion variability. Methods In the present study, 115 participants (64% Female, 72% White, Mage = 19.03) were randomly assigned to a brief MM intervention condition (n = 60) or a wait‐list control condition (n = 51)...

Background Perceived growth (PG) refers to perceptions of positive changes that unfold over time after experiencing trauma. Higher PG is often associated with positive long‐term health, but the processes through which PG may influence health are unclear. The present study examines two potential pathways among individuals living with asthma or RA: (...

Neuroticism is strongly implicated in the development of sleep impairment and sleep disorders such as insomnia. However, it is unclear if neuroticism is a direct predictor of sleep, and/or if it moderates associations between related psychological processes (e.g., rumination and negative affect, or NA) and sleep in daily life. We investigated: 1) n...

Extensive research links depression and inflammation, with emerging evidence suggesting some differences between males and females in these associations. However, relatively few studies have examined stimulated inflammatory responses (ex vivo) in depression. The present research investigated the associations between depressive symptoms, basal infla...

Pain is frequently reported among young adults but relatively understudied in this population. Sleep and affect disturbances are often comorbid with chronic pain in young adults, yet the day-to-day dynamics between these variables are not well understood. This research examined bidirectional associations between daily pain, affect, and nightly slee...

We examined whether peripheral inflammatory markers were better predicted by negative and positive affect (NA and PA) measures derived from ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in daily life, as compared to standard recall “over the past month” questionnaire. Diverse adult participants (N = 206) completed questionnaires and then EMAs 5x/day for 14...

Increasing evidence suggests that depression is linked with immune dysregulation. In this study, we examined the links between depressive symptoms and both basal and lipopolysaccharide-stimulated ( ex vivo ) levels of pro-inflammatory (IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-alpha) and anti-inflammatory (IL-10) cytokines in blood. Subjects were recruited from th...

Growing evidence suggests that positive emotions are protective against inflammation, yet less is known about the role of day-to-day positive experiences in inflammatory processes. This research examined the frequency of momentary positive events in relation to circulating inflammatory markers and stimulated inflammatory responses (ex vivo to an en...

Although a relationship between mood and pain has been established cross-sectionally, little research has examined this relationship using momentary within-person data. We examined whether baseline depressive symptoms and within-person levels of negative and positive mood predicted momentary pain among 31 individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA)....

We examined the effect of daily negative and positive mood on the sleep quality of knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients (N = 152) and whether a partner's daily responses to a patient's pain behaviors moderated these associations. Patients and their partners completed a baseline interview and 22 daily diary assessments. After controlling for demographi...

The present study examined the unique impact of perceived negativity in multiple social relationships on endocrine and inflammatory responses to a laboratory stressor. Via hierarchical cluster analysis, those who reported negative social exchanges across relationships with a romantic partner, family, and their closest friend had higher mean IL-6 ac...

Inflammation increases the risk of chronic diseases, but the links between emotional responses to daily events and inflammation are unknown. We examined individual differences in affective reactivity to daily stressors (i.e., changes in positive and negative affect in response to stressors) as predictors of inflammatory markers interleukin-6 (IL-6)...

Background: Despite evidence that psychological stress is an important risk factor for age-related cognitive loss, little research has directly evaluated psychological and physiological mediators of the relationship between stressful experiences and cognitive function. A key objective of the ESCAPE (Effects of Stress on Cognitive Aging, Physiology,...

The psychological mechanisms by which depressed mood can lead to impaired sleep and poorer overall health remain unclear. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which a tendency to ruminate accounts for the associations between depressed mood and both sleep quality and self-reported health in 165 healthy young adults. Self-reported...

Background Inflammation is implicated in the development of chronic diseases and increases the risk of mortality. People who experience more daily stressors than others have higher levels of inflammation, but it is unknown whether daily positive events are linked to inflammation. Objective To examine the association of daily positive events with 3...

Although drama exposure has been examined in the context of health promotion programs, the underlying mechanisms of reflecting on drama have not been established. The degree to which drama contemplation leads to cognitive changes (increased processing, self-compassion and emotional self-efficacy) and improved well-being was examined in the present...

Objective: Psychological stress is known to impair skin barrier recovery, but little is known about the impact of pain on skin healing processes. Our primary goals were to examine the degree to which acute pain affects recovery from skin barrier disruption, and the potential mediating impact of cortisol and catecholamines. Methods: Healthy non-s...

This study examined the role of emotion regulation (ER) strategies and emotional disposition in problem drinking of adolescent offenders (n = 303) and non-offending peers (n = 287) from South Korea. The participants completed a questionnaire assessing problem drinking, positive and negative emotion, emotional intensity, and use of problem solving,...

Objective: We examined the mechanisms that underlie the observed relationships between loneliness and depressed mood and poor sleep quality in college students. This study was the first to investigate whether rumination and trait anxiety are psychological mechanisms that mediate this relationship. Methods: In Study 1 (n = 1,244), using factor an...

To discern whether gender was a unique predictor of the white coat effect (WCE) in a population of normotensives and patients diagnosed with hypertension. Participants (n=252) underwent a doctor's office visit to have their blood pressure measured. Multiple blood pressure readings were taken by both a research assistant and by the attending physici...

Key points in this chapter include: l Physiological aspects of wound repair l Psychoneuroimmunological factors on wound healing l Tissue type l Impact of gender, age and health behaviours on wound healing. As you are reading this there is a good chance that your body is undergoing some sort of healing, be it from a superficial paper cut or a surgic...

Adequate sleep is essential for health across the lifespan and is likely to be influenced by different factors among those with chronic pain than among others. Questionnaires were administered to 362 college students, some of whom reported chronic pain from varied sources. Among chronic pain sufferers (n = 108), pain severity was uniquely associate...

Stress in pregnancy predicts earlier birth and lower birth weight. The authors investigated whether pregnancy-specific stress contributes uniquely to birth outcomes compared with general stress, and whether prenatal health behaviors explain this association. Three structured prenatal interviews (N = 279) assessing state anxiety, perceived stress, l...