Relationship of Life Change, Maladaptive Aggression, and Upper Respiratory Infection in Male College Students

Abstract

It was hypothesized that the development of a serious upper respiratory infection (URI) for which treatment is sought is antedated by a maladaptive reaction to distressing life conflicts. Twenty-nine male college students who sought relief from sore throats at a college health service were compared with 29 symptom-free students randomly selected from the college directory. The subjects were given a series of questionnaires and a projective test to measure the incidence of distressing life changes, patterns of maladaptive coping, and unpleasant affect. The results indicated that significantly more disappointment, failure, and role crisis appeared in the lives of individuals who became ill and sought help than in "normals." Defiant coping patterns and heightened unpleasant affect also distinctly characterized the URI group.1 T HAS BEEN OBSERVED that, even in times of epidemics, not all people become ill. The development of disease is a selective process affecting particular people more than others and is, at times, relatively independent of natural envi-

Prediction of Illness Behavior from Measures of Life Crisis, Manifest Distress and Maladaptive Coping

“…among healthy and sick students on the basis of responses to items representing role crisis and failure. The other items on the test, reflecting family relationship changes and increased responsibility, have not been found to be associated with illness behavior in our previous work (1)(2)(3) and were not used as predictors in this study.…”

“…The second test used was the Manifest Affect Rating Scale (MARS) (1,2,(13)(14)(15) which measures current experiences of unpleasant affect-ie, the sum of feelings of sadness, pessimism, guilt, psychomotor retardation, anxiety and hostility.…”

Stress, Anxiety and Depression

“…As a consequence, the voodoo victim feels cast out, isolated, alone, seeing death as the only escape from an intolerable loneliness'. A study by Jacobs et al 6 showed that psychological stress adversely aected the susceptibility of 394 healthy subjects to develop colds when deliberately infected with respiratory viruses. Infection became established in 82 per cent of the subjects, as compared to only 19 per cent of a control group.…”

Towards a Better Understanding of Health and Disease

“…While genetics and pathogens play a role in disease causation [16], personality [17], lifestyle [18] and environment [19] also play a critical role in manifesting disease [19]. It is known that many individuals despite being infected with a pathogen do not develop symptoms or exhibit 'dis-ease' behavior [19; 20].…”