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Reward Sensitivity, Cognitive Response Style, and Inflammatory Response to an Acute Stressor in Adolescents

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Abstract

Inflammation is gaining support as a biological mediator between stress and many negative outcomes that have heightened risk during adolescence (e.g., mood disorders). Thus, an important line of inquiry is evaluating whether risk factors for mood psychopathology also are associated with heightened inflammatory responses to stress during this developmental period. Two prominent risk factors that interact to predict mood psychopathology are reward sensitivity and perseverative cognitive response styles, which also have been associated with heightened inflammatory proteins. These factors could influence inflammation by synergistically amplifying stress reactivity. Ninety-nine late adolescents (Mage = 18.3 years, range = 15.6–21.9 years) completed measures of reward sensitivity, cognitive response style, and blood draws before and 60-min after a modified Trier Social Stress Task to determine levels of inflammation. Higher reward drive interacted with more perseverative response style ratios (rumination relative to distraction + problem-solving) to predict larger increases in interleukin-6 (a proinflammatory protein). Follow-up analyses found that reward drive interacted with all three components of the ratio to predict change in interleukin-6. Thus, these results suggest that high reward drive and perseverative cognitive response styles are associated with increased inflammatory response to social stress in adolescents, a potential physiological mechanism linking these risk factors to mood psychopathology during this developmental period.

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Funding

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants MH79369 and MH101168 to Lauren B. Alloy and MH118545 to Lauren M. Ellman. Daniel P. Moriarity was supported by National Research Service Award F31MH122116. Erin Curley was supported by National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 1650457. Brae Anne McArthur was supported by a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Temple University, Weiss Hall, 1701 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA

    Daniel P. Moriarity, Tommy Ng, Erin E. Curley, Brae Anne McArthur, Lauren M. Ellman & Lauren B. Alloy

  2. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Christopher L. Coe & Lyn Y. Abramson

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  1. Daniel P. Moriarity
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  2. Tommy Ng
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  3. Erin E. Curley
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Contributions

DPM generated hypotheses, ran and interpreted analyses, and drafted the manuscript; TN participated in data analysis, result interpretation, and provided feedback on the manuscript; EC participated in data analysis, result interpretation, and provided feedback on the manuscript; BAM participated in the creation of the database, data cleaning, and provided feedback on the manuscript; LME participated in the design, cleaning of the inflammation data, and provided feedback on the manuscript; CLC assayed blood samples, aided in database construction, and provided feedback on the manuscript; LYA helped write the grant that funded the study, and provided feedback on the manuscript; LBA helped design the original study and write the grant that funded the study, participated in the design and coordination of this study, and helped to write and provided feedback on all drafts of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lauren B. Alloy.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The Temple University Institutional Review Board approved the protocol (IRB protocol #6844).

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Written informed consent was collected from all study participants after explaining their role in the study and before starting data collection.

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Moriarity, D.P., Ng, T., Curley, E.E. et al. Reward Sensitivity, Cognitive Response Style, and Inflammatory Response to an Acute Stressor in Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence 49, 2149–2159 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01216-y

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