2011 Psychosocial-Resources AESP

C H A P T E R O N E
Psychosocial Resources:
Functions, Origins, and Links
to Mental and Physical Health
Shelley E. Taylor and Joelle I. Broffman
Contents
1. Psychological and Social Resources: What Are They? 2
1.1. Optimism 2
1.2. Mastery/psychological control 7
1.3. Self-related resources 9
1.4. Other individual difference psychosocial resources 12
1.5. Social relationships and social support 13
1.6. Psychosocial resources as a composite variable 15
2. Mediators Linking Psychosocial Resources to Mental and
Physical Outcomes 16
2.1. Negative and positive affect 17
2.2. Coping 20
2.3. Neural mechanisms mediating the effects of psychosocial
resources on mental and physical health outcomes 21
2.4. Biological mediators 25
3. Origins of Psychosocial Resources 28
3.1. Early environment 28
4. Can People be Taught to Develop Psychosocial Resources? 34
5. Conclusions and Remaining Issues 36
Acknowledgment 40
References 40
Abstract
Psychosocial resources are individual differences and social relationships that
have beneficial effects on mental and physical health outcomes. The exact pro-
cesses whereby psychosocial resources beneficially affect well-being and physical
health outcomes have, until recently, been largely unknown. We examine chronic
negative and positive affect, approach versus avoidant coping processes, and
neural responses to threat as likely mediators. These, in turn, regulate
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 44 # 2011 Elsevier Inc.

ISSN 0065-2601, DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385522-0.00001-9 All rights reserved.
1
2 Shelley E. Taylor and Joelle I. Broffman
psychological, autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune responses, the likely

proximal factors that lead to differential health outcomes. The origins of psycho-
social resources are in the early environment, genetic predispositions, and their
interaction. We conclude with consideration of whether psychosocial resources can
be taught and a discussion of issues remaining to be addressed by future research.
Personality and social psychologists have long studied individual dif-

ferences in psychosocial resources, including personality traits and social
relationships, and their contributions to psychological well-being (e.g.,
Antonovsky, 1979; Hobfoll, 1989; Taylor, 1983). In the past two decades,
it has become evident that many of these same individual differences and
relationships contribute to physical health outcomes as well (e.g., Adler,
Marmot, McEwen, & Stewart, 1999). In this review, we consider what
individual differences and social relationships may reasonably be thought of
as psychosocial resources by examining the evidence that they contribute to
mental and physical health. Because several of these resources have been
studied for nearly 30 years, we draw on reviews and meta-analyses of the
literature wherever possible. We next explore possible pathways whereby
psychosocial resources have effects on psychological and physical health,
including chronic positive or negative affect; approach/active coping; neu-
ral activation of brain regions involved in stress regulation; and effects on
cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune functioning. We then examine the
origins of psychosocial resources in the early environment, genetic predis-
positions, and their interaction. Together, these findings converge on a
multilevel integrative model that ties together observations from the societal
level to the molecular level (Fig. 1.1). Finally, we discuss prospects for
improving psychosocial resources and address some as yet unresolved issues.
1. Psychological and Social Resources:

What Are They?
In this section, we review optimism, mastery/perceived control, self-
related resources, social support, and, more briefly, several other individual
differences and social factors that have been tied to beneficial mental and
physical health outcomes. As will be seen in the later section, these positive
resources are somewhat intercorrelated (at 0.350.55) but are also suffi-
ciently independent to warrant independent consideration.
1.1. Optimism
One of the most widely studied psychosocial resources is optimism. Opti-
mism reflects the extent to which people hold favorable expectations about
the future (Scheier & Carver, 1992). As a dispositional variable, it reflects
Psychosocial Resources 3
Early environment Genetic predispositions

Childhood SES Dopamine
Early family environment Serotonin
Oxytocin and vasopressin
Others
Psychosocial
resources
Optimism
Mastery
Self-esteem
Social support
Neural responses
Chronic negative and
to threat
positive affect Anterior cingulate
Depressive symptoms cortex Coping processes
Anxiety Amygdala (approach, avoidance)
Neuroticism Hypothalamus
Positive affect Prefrontal cortex
Psychological, autonomic,
neuroendocrine, and
immune responses to
threatening
circumstances
Mental and physical

health outcomes
Figure 1.1 A model of the development and deployment of psychosocial resources.
generalized favorable expectations across a broad array of outcomes. Situa-

tional optimism reflects favorable expectations in a specific situation; it may
or may not be correlated with dispositional optimism, as studies comparing
dispositional optimism with measures of situation-specific expectancies
often find weak or negligible relations between the two (see Armor &
Taylor, 1998 for a review).
1.1.1. Dispositional optimism

The groundbreaking work on dispositional optimism was conducted by
Scheier and Carver (1992). To assess dispositional optimism, Scheier,
Carver, and Bridges (1994) developed a scale, the LOT-R, that measures
optimism as a pervasive individual difference and includes such items as In

uncertain times I usually expect the best and the reverse-coded, If
something can go wrong for me, it will.
Controlling for previous well-being, higher levels of optimism are
related prospectively to better well-being, especially in times of adversity
(for a review, see Carver, Scheier, & Segerstrom, 2010). For example, in a
study that speaks to the role of optimism as a resource, Brissette, Scheier,
and Carver (2002) had beginning college students complete measures
of optimism, perceived stress, depression, and social stress at the start of
the college year and again at the end of the first semester. At the end of the
semester, optimists reported less stress and depression and more social
support, suggesting that their optimistic expectations helped them weather
this difficult transition.
Optimism has also been related to better physical health outcomes. It is
protective against coronary heart disease in older men (Kubzansky,
Sparrow, Vokonas, & Kawachi, 2001), unpleasant side effects of cancer
treatments (De Moor et al., 2006), cancer mortality among the elderly
(Schulz, Bookwala, Knapp, Scheier, & Williamson, 1996), pain (Geers,
Wellman, Helfer, Fowler, & France, 2008; Rosenberger, Kerns, Jokl, &
Ickovics, 2009), loss of pulmonary function (Kubzansky et al., 2002), and
illness-related disruption of social and recreational activities in breast cancer
patients (Carver, Lehman, & Antoni, 2003), among other beneficial health-
related outcomes (see Carver et al., 2010, for a review). Optimism has also
been tied to a longer life (Giltay, Geleijnse, Zitman, Hoekstra, & Schouten,
2004; but see Tomakowsky, Lumley, Markowitz, & Frank, 2001).
Exactly how optimism achieves these effects has been examined, and the
fostering of active approach-oriented coping efforts has been implicated in
several studies (e.g., Scheier, Weintraub, & Carver, 1986). For example, in a
study with coronary artery bypass patients, Scheier et al. (1989) found that
optimists use of more problem-focused coping and less use of denial led to a
faster rate of recovery during hospitalization and a faster rate of returning to
normal activities after discharge. Optimism also predicted postsurgical qual-
ity of life 6 months later. In the college student study noted above (Brissette
et al., 2002), the reasons why optimists managed the stress of college better
included the fact that the optimists were more likely than pessimists to seek
out social contact with others and to positively reinterpret the stressful
circumstances they encountered. Active coping has been found to mediate
the relation of optimism to better adjustment in stressful circumstances
(Brissette et al., 2002; Carver et al., 1993). Optimists also use more emo-
tional approach coping (Stanton, Danoff-Burg, Cameron, & Ellis, 1994;
Stanton, Sullivan, & Austenfeld, 2009), especially in dealing with uncon-
trollable stressors (Carver et al., 2010).
Other potential mechanisms linking optimism to mental and physical
health outcomes include the fact that optimism is reliably associated with a
stronger sense of personal control (Ruthig & Chipperfield, 2006), a more

positive mood, and better health behaviors (Carver et al., 2010). Optimism
is related to more social resources as well, such that optimists have better
social connections than pessimists; social connections, in turn, appear to
increase optimism (Carver et al., 2010), so there is a reciprocal relation
between these variables. Optimism has been tied to lower physiological
responses to stress (Carver et al., 2010), which may account, in part, for its
relation to better physical health outcomes. Optimism has also been tied to
better immune functioning, in part via its association with a more positive
mood (Segerstrom & Sephton, 2010).
1.1.2. Situational optimism

The literature on situational optimism has addressed primarily the outcomes
of goal pursuit and performance, rather than mental and physical health
outcomes. On the whole, optimistic expectations have been found to
facilitate performance and progress toward goals (Armor & Taylor, 1998).
An important theme that the dispositional versus situational optimism
literature highlights, accordingly, is the continuity between research on
everyday pursuit of goals and research on coping with stress. That is, studies
of dispositional optimism often concern how people cope with stressful
events, and so outcomes assessed are typically psychological distress and
health-related outcomes. In contrast, the situational optimism literature
more commonly examines goal-oriented motivation and performance,
and so those studies tend to emphasize achievement-related outcomes
(Armor & Taylor, 1998). This distinction between goal setting and attain-
ment and stress reduction may be somewhat arbitrary because, in fact,
parallels between the two literatures are evident and may be instructive:
Both literatures make compelling cases that optimistic expectations about
ones outcomes facilitate adaptive problem-solving activity and approach-
oriented activities. For example, in one study (Solberg Nes, Evans, &
Segerstrom, 2009), dispositional optimism predicted staying in school via
enhanced motivation and better psychological adjustment; academic opti-
mism, that is, specific optimism related to the academic environment,
predicted staying in school via its effect on grade-point average, as well as
via motivation and adjustment.
Is there a downside to optimism? Whether unrealistic optimism is
beneficial has been widely explored in the situational optimism literature,
specifically, whether it incurs potential risks, such as disappointment or
unrealistic goal setting (e.g., Weinstein, 1982). A review by Armor and
Taylor (1998) concluded that these risks may not be as common or as
problematic as originally expected. Although people who are unrealistically
optimistic may fall short of their overly optimistic expectations, it appears
that they, nonetheless, achieve more than they would have, had they
maintained more pessimistic assessments (e.g., Armor & Taylor, 2003).
A second concern has centered on whether optimism blinds people to

realistic risks to which they should be attentive. On the whole, this concern
may also be less worrisome than first thought. For example, in three
experimental studies with diverse methods, Aspinwall and Brunhart
(2000) found that optimistic beliefs were linked to greater, not lesser,
processing of health risk-related information, as the level of self-relevant
threat increased (see also Geers, Wellman, Seligman, Wuyek, & Neff,
2010). Taylor et al. (1992) found that gay men who were unrealistically
optimistic about their ability to stave off AIDS engaged in more health-
promoting behaviors and utilized more active coping than those who were
less optimistic (see also Reed, Kemeny, Taylor, Wang, & Visscher, 1994). It
may be that optimists are more confident than pessimists that their efforts to
control or reduce their risk will be successful and, thus, may be more likely
to engage in these efforts (Carver et al., 2010). As will be seen, there is
neural evidence consistent with this hypothesis as well. However, not all
research suggests benefits of unrealistic optimism (see Luo & Isaacowitz,
2007), and so the evidence on this issue remains mixed.
Because optimists are more persistent than pessimists in pursuing their
goals, this can lead to other potential costs. Specifically, optimists can
experience short-term physiological costs in reactivity because of their
enhanced striving. When optimists expectations are not met, they may
experience more stress and more compromised immune functioning as a
result of their unsuccessful efforts to attain goals (Segerstrom, 2001), includ-
ing suppressed immune responses (Segerstrom, 2006). More typically,
though, optimism enables people to deploy coping skills more effectively
and, thereby, reduces stress.
People seem to have an intuitive wisdom about their optimistic expec-
tations, especially when those expectations might be somewhat positively
biased, and they behave in such a way as to minimize personal costs of
misplaced optimism. First, people are not indiscriminately optimistic. For
example, as they move closer to the outcomes they seek, their optimistic
expectations become more tempered, presumably because the reality of
potentially falling short becomes more evident (e.g., Gilovich, Kerr, &
Medvec, 1993; Shepperd, Ouellette, & Fernandez, 1996). Second, human
beings have substantial interpretive abilities so that outcomes that fall short
may be recast to be consistent with initial expectations (Armor & Taylor,
1998). Although overly optimistic expectations are rarely completely ful-
filled, optimistic predictions tend to yield favorable evaluations of outcomes
(e.g., Sherman, 1980). This might be achieved, for example, by shifting
ones standard of evaluation or by getting what you want by revising what
you had (Conway & Ross, 1984). People tend to be more unrealistically
optimistic about outcomes that are not easily verified, as opposed to out-
comes can be easily verified. Thus, for example, desired outcomes that are
more subjective may generate more unrealistic optimism than those that can
be objectively measured (Armor & Taylor, 1998). Moreover, although

expectations often tend in the direction of an optimistic bias, they are not
out of touch with reality; they show relative, if not absolute, accuracy.
In conclusion, the association of dispositional optimism with beneficial
outcomes is paralleled in research on situational optimism (Armor & Taylor,
1998) and may be underpinned by some of the same mechanisms, such as
active coping, despite the focus on different outcomes.
1.2. Mastery/psychological control

The belief that one can master or exert control over the environment has
long been considered adaptive, both for pursuing personal goals and for
helping people to cope with threat or stress (e.g., Poortvliet, Janssen, Van
Yperen, & Van de Vliert, 2007; Thompson, 1981). Mastery or psychologi-
cal control involves the belief that one can determine ones own behavior,
influence ones environment, and bring about desired outcomes. Like
optimism, mastery may be dispositional or situational in nature. As a
dispositional factor, mastery is typically assessed by the Pearlin Mastery
Scale (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978), which includes such items as, I can do
just about anything I really set my mind to and the reverse-coded, I have
little control over the things that happen to me. On the situational level,
mastery/control is typically assessed or manipulated as the perception that
ones efforts will enable progress toward or achievement of desired out-
comes. Perceived control is conceptually related to self-efficacy, which is
the more narrow perception that one can take a specific action necessary to
bring about a specific outcome in a specific situation (Bandura, 1977) and to
the concept of perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 2002); perceived
behavioral control combines beliefs in mastery/controllability and
beliefs about self-efficacy, but is typically treated as a unitary concept
(Ajzen, 2002).
Across a broad array of situations using a variety of methodologies, the
belief that one can control stressful events has been tied to emotional well-
being, successful adjustment to a stressful event, good health behaviors,
good performance on cognitive tasks, and good mental health (Gale,
Batty, & Deary, 2008; Thompson & Spacapan, 1991). For example, a
considerable literature has identified a sense of mastery as a protective factor
against depression in response to threat or stress (e.g., Badger, 2001; Dunkle,
Roberts, & Haug, 2001; Jang, Haley, Small, & Mortimer, 2002; Pearlin,
Lieberman, Menaghan, & Mullan, 1981).
On the physical health side, a sense of control or mastery has been linked
to a lower risk of mortality, primarily due to cardiovascular disease (Surtees,
Wainwright, Luben, Khaw, & Day, 2006) and to lower levels of cardiovas-
cular risk factors (Mausbach et al., 2008; Paquet, Dube, Gauvin, Kestens, &
Daniel, 2010). Perceptions of self-efficacy have been tied to lower
physiological and psychological stress responses and to better mood

(Nierop, Wirtz, Bratsikas, Zimmermann, & Ehlert, 2008).
Control may be especially important for vulnerable people, such as
children, the elderly, and medical patients who are at risk for exacerbation
of health problems (Wrosch, Schulz, Miller, Lupien, & Dunne, 2007).
Because control may be difficult for people who already have little oppor-
tunity to exert it, anything that enhances perceptions of control may
particularly benefit such people. For example, a study by Jeon and Dunkle
(2010) found that among older adults, who typically experience a reduced
sense of mastery relative to younger people, those higher in sense of mastery
were less likely to experience depressive symptoms over time and, thus,
mastery acted as a protective resource.
An important aspect of psychological control is the fact that people often
generate feelings of control spontaneously to help them cope. For example,
medical patients with chronic or advancing disease often generate percep-
tions that they can control aspects of their illness, such as its symptoms,
course, and treatment (Taylor, 1983). Generally speaking, these perceptions
are adaptive (Helgeson, 1992; Michela, 1987; Taylor, Lichtman, & Wood,
1984), even when they are not completely realistic (Taylor, 1983). For
example, cancer patients beliefs that they have control over aspects of their
disease or care seem to reflect a capacity to adapt, rather than a vulnerability
to distress (Henselmans et al., 2010; Wrosch et al., 2007).
Paralleling the dispositionalsituational distinction in research on opti-
mism, studies of situational control or mastery often focus on goal achieve-
ment in specific situations. For example, behavioral intentions and
perceptions of behavioral control are strong predictors of subsequent behav-
ior and link attitudes to actions (Ajzen, 2001). A large literature on implicit
theories of learning (Dweck, in press) indicates that beliefs that one can
modify ones personal attributes are very important to achievement. The
belief that abilities are malleable and controllable is important not only for
guiding activities toward goals but especially for confronting challenges and
setbacks (Dweck, in press). An experimental study revealed a related pattern
(Pham, Taylor, & Seeman, 2001). College student participants were
exposed to an experimental priming manipulation that made salient the
unpredictable/uncontrollable aspects of college, the predictable/controlla-
ble aspects of college, or neutral features of the college environment. They
later completed a thought-listing task about college. Participants who had
been exposed to the predictable/controllable manipulation made more
references to the future and more references to personal goals in their
thought-listing protocols than those in the neutral or the uncontrollable
condition.
The perception of control is not a panacea for all aversive situations.
People who desire control may especially benefit from interventions that
emphasize it (Thompson, Cheek, & Graham, 1988), but control can be
aversive when it gives people more responsibility than they want

(Chipperfield & Perry, 2006). Providing too much information or too
many choices may be stressful and exacerbate, rather than ameliorate,
distress (e.g., Iyengar, 2010; Schwartz, 2004; Thompson et al., 1988).
Nonetheless, on the whole, control is a beneficial psychosocial resource.
What are the avenues by which control beneficially affects mental and
physical health? They appear to parallel some of the same mechanisms found
for optimism. That is, feelings of control or mastery lead people to make
active coping efforts. Beliefs in control can also alter physiological responses
to stress. For example, in the Pham et al. (2001) study described earlier,
participants who had been primed to think of college as predictable and
controllable had lower systolic blood pressure and heart rate reactivity in
response to the experimental task, compared with those in the neutral
condition and the unpredictable condition.
1.3. Self-related resources

Self-related resources, such as self-esteem and the self-concept, have been
widely examined for their effects on well-being and health.
1.3.1. Self-esteem
Like optimism and mastery, self-esteem has been studied as a disposition and
as a factor that can vary by situation or life domain (Campbell, 1990;
Crocker & Knight, 2005). When studied as a disposition, the Rosenberg
Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) is often administered, which includes
such items as, I feel that I have a number of good qualities and the
reverse-coded, All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
The relation of self-esteem to well-being is virtually definitional, and
conventional definitions of mental health maintain that feeling good about
oneself is a central component (see Taylor & Brown, 1988). Empirical
evidence supports this idea. For example, using two large longitudinal
datasets including more than 4000 people aged 1896 years, Orth,
Robins, Trzesniewski, Maes, and Schmitt (2009) found that low self-esteem
predicted subsequent depressive symptoms (whereas depressive symptoms
did not predict subsequent low self-esteem). The pattern was consistent
across all age groups, for several measures of depression, and after
controlling for content overlap between the measures. Using two large
longitudinal datasets, with repeated measures on people ages 1521 and
1821, Trzesniewski, Donnellan, Moffitt, Robins, Poulton, and Caspi
(2006) again found that low self-esteem predicted subsequent levels of
depression, but not the reverse. Low self-esteem in adolescence was also
predictive of poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects,
and a higher likelihood of engagement in criminal behavior during adult-
hood, relative to high self-esteem; these effects were not explained by
depression or SES. Thus, low self-esteem appears to be a risk factor for

psychological distress at all ages during adult life (Orth et al., 2009). For the
most part, self-esteem seems to be more protective at lower levels of stress;
at high levels of stress, stress itself can overwhelm the benefits of self-esteem
(Whisman & Kwon, 1993). Even when self-regard is somewhat overly
positive, it can have mental health benefits (Kwan, Love, Ryff, & Essex,
2003; Taylor et al., 2003a).
Self-esteem may exert its effects on health outcomes by some of the same
routes as optimism and mastery. For example, people with high self-esteem
have been found to use less avoidant and more approach-oriented coping
(Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). Similar to the findings for mastery (Dweck, in
press), Crocker and colleagues (e.g., Niiya, Brook, & Crocker, 2010) found
that people who believe that they can improve their personal qualities are
more resilient in response to failure than people who do not. Low self-
esteem is a potent predictor of psychological and biological reactivity
to stress (Pruessner, Lord, Meaney, & Lupien, 2004) and thus can compro-
mise well-being; these effects may be mediated by social bonds (Stinson
et al., 2008).
1.3.2. Ego strength

Related to self-esteem is a cluster of personality qualities called ego strength,
including dependability, trust, and lack of impulsivity (Deary, Batty, Pattie, &
Gale, 2008). This cluster appears to have health benefits. For example, in a
longitudinal investigation (Friedman et al., 1995), researchers studied adults
who had first been interviewed as children in 19211922. Those who were
high in ego strength as children lived longer as adults. One reason is that the
people with high ego strength were less likely to smoke and use alcohol to
excess, and so one route that may link ego strength to health outcomes is better
health habits (Friedman et al., 1995; Temcheff et al., 2010).
1.3.3. Self-concept
The self-concept is not inherently a psychosocial resource but, rather,
represents the beliefs that people hold about their personal attributes.
Nonetheless, there are aspects of the self-concept that may act as psychoso-
cial resources. For example, people who hold multiple roles and have
multiple areas in their lives that are sources of reward are better buffered
against setbacks than people who do not (Chrouser Ahrens & Ryff, 2006;
Linville, 1987; Waldron, Weiss, & Hughes, 1998). The self-concept repre-
sents areas of vulnerability as well as resilience. Within the self-concept,
certain domains are central, such as the work role or the marriage role,
whereas others may be more peripheral, such as ones sense of self as a
decent tennis player. Threats to core areas of the self engage defensive
processing of personally relevant risk-related information, whereas threats
to more peripheral areas of the self may lead people to refocus their efforts
on other self-relevant life domains (Sherman & Cohen, 2006).
1.3.4. Self-affirmation
An extensive literature has examined whether manipulating self-related
resources improves well-being, health, and coping with stress (Sherman &
Cohen, 2006). Much of this work is guided by the theory of self-affirmation
(Steele, 1988), which asserts that the goal of the self system is to protect a
positive self-image; when self integrity is threatened, people respond to
restore self-worth. People may affirm alternative self resources, as by reflect-
ing on important aspects of life irrelevant to the threat or by engaging in an
activity that makes personal values salient, such as religion, the importance
of friends and family, or artistic endeavors. In a typical self-affirmation study,
people rank order their values and then are instructed to focus on a value
that ranks high for them versus one that is less important (low self-affirma-
tion), and they are then are exposed to tasks or information that threaten
the self.
On the mental health side, self-affirmation can reduce ruminative think-
ing among people exposed to a personal threat, such as failure on an IQ test
(Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, & Dijksterhuis, 1999), and buffer people
biologically against stress. For example, in one study (Creswell et al., 2005),
people who had either affirmed an important value or a less important value
participated in stressful tasks in the laboratory (the Trier Social Stress Task,
involving difficult mental arithmeticand the preparation and delivery of a
speech to an unresponsive audience; Kirschbaum, Klauer, Filipp, &
Hellhammer, 1995). Those who had self-affirmed in advance showed
lower cortisol responses to the tasks. Trait self-esteem and optimism mod-
erated the relation between self-affirmation and psychological distress, such
that participants who had dispositional self resources and who had affirmed
personal values reported being the least stressed. Sherman, Bunyan,
Creswell, and Jaremka (2009) reported that self-affirmation exercises
resulted in lower urinary catecholamine levels in response to the stress
of exams.
Self-affirmation can also affect physical health-related outcomes.
Keough (1998) found that participants who wrote self-affirmation essays
over the winter break were less likely to visit health services upon their
return to school. Health behaviors may be beneficially affected by self-
affirmation as well (Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000). Linking health
behavior change campaigns to identity cues related to personally important
values can improve the long-term impact of such messages (Dal Cin,
MacDonald, Fong, Zanna, & Elton-Marshall, 2006).
An important caveat regarding self-affirmation is that the self-affirmation
needs to be in a domain different from that involving the threat. Thus, for
example, self-affirmation of values unrelated to a threatening or stressful
event decreases bias and inflexibility, but self-affirmations within the same
domain actually backfire, enhancing distress and defensiveness (Sherman &
Cohen, 2006). The self-affirmation process also needs to occur prior to a
threat to the self in order to reduce defensive responses (Critcher, Dunning,
& Armor, 2010).
Otherwise, though, self-affirmation processes can overcome defensive
processing of risk-related information, paralleling observations on disposi-
tional optimism. For example, when a health message is threatening, people
may scrutinize it closely in a defensive effort to make the message seem less
related to their health outcomes (e.g., Ditto & Lopez, 1992; Kunda, 1987).
However, if people have affirmed an important self value prior to processing
personally relevant risk-related information, they process that information
in a more even-handed way (Epton & Harris, 2008; Reed & Aspinwall,
1998; Sherman et al., 2000).
1.4. Other individual difference psychosocial resources

The preceding psychosocial resources of optimism, mastery, and self-esteem
are those that have generated the most research and for which the eviden-
tiary basis relating both dispositional and situational assessments to mental
and physical health-related outcomes is the strongest. There are, however,
other individual difference variables that may reasonably be considered
psychosocial resources that we consider briefly here.
1.4.1. Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is associated with good health and longevity (Kern,
Friedman, Martin, Reynolds, & Luong, 2009; Taylor et al., 2009;
Terracciano, Lockenhoff, Zonderman, Ferrucci, & Costa, 2008). For
example, a study that examined personality ratings for youngsters in
19211922 found that children who were highly conscientious were
more likely to live to an old age (Friedman et al., 1995). Conscientious
people may be more successful in avoiding situations that could harm them,
and they also practice good health habits reliably (OCleirigh, Ironson,
Weiss, & Costa, 2007; OConnor, Conner, Jones, McMillan, & Ferguson,
2009), although research suggests that the beneficial effects of conscien-
tiousness on longevity cannot be explained entirely by health behaviors
(Terracciano et al., 2008).
Historically, conscientiousness has been measured by self-perceptions of
competence, a preference for order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-
discipline, and deliberation (e.g., OCleirigh et al., 2007); thus, it is possible
that conscientiousness as a trait is a marker for skills that contribute to the
ability to get things done, including the willingness to persevere on difficult
tasks and the capacities to be organized, orderly, and dutiful about complet-
ing tasks. As such, the role of conscientiousness in fostering beneficial
mental and physical health outcomes under stressful circumstances may well
be underestimated. Conscientious people may be able to avoid many
stressful events. Precisely because they are organized, dutiful people, they
may never actually encounter certain stressors. For example, if you are
conscientious about getting your car in for its regular service, the likelihood
that you will be confronted with a more major problem down the road is
reduced, as potential problems can be preempted or nipped in the bud.
Thus, conscientiousness may be a psychosocial resource that is distinctively
preemptive in nature, relative to the other psychosocial measures discussed
thus far (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997).
1.4.2. Extraversion
Extraversion refers to a persons preferences for social settings and a ten-
dency to be outgoing, which are underpinnings of a socially engaged
lifestyle (Wilson et al., 2005). Extraversion is generally tied to a positive
mood (e.g., Stafford, Ng, Moore, & Bard, 2010) and has been tied to
physical health benefits (e.g, Broadbent, Broadbent, Phillpotts, & Wallace,
1984; Cohen et al., 1998; Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, & Skoner, 2003a;
Totman, Kiff, Reed, & Craig, 1980) and reduced risk of mortality in old age
(Wilson et al., 2005).
1.4.3. Other potential resources

Investigators have alluded to other potential psychosocial resources, includ-
ing a sense of purpose in ones life, finding meaning in adversity, and a sense
of humor (e.g., Chida & Steptoe, 2008). However, these resources have
received less research attention, and so their status as psychosocial resources
related to psychological and physical health cannot currently be established.
1.5. Social relationships and social support

Human beings tendencies to come together in group living have histori-
cally represented a vital mechanism for protecting against threats, including
predation, natural disasters, and attack by other social groups. Whereas most
other species are armed with defensive weapons, such as sharp teeth or
claws, or defensive resources, such as thick skin, human beings depend
critically on one another for survival. Although current research on the
protective aspects of social relationships only rarely concerns these histori-
cally significant threats, considerable research confirms the beneficial effects
of social relationships on mental and physical health. Simply put, people
who have or perceive themselves to have strong and close social contacts are
less likely to suffer emotional distress, and they have better health and
longevity than people without such contacts. As more than 800 studies
attest to these benefits, we do not review them further here (for reviews, see
House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988; Taylor, 2011; Uchino, 2009).
Social relationships and a common consequence, namely social support,

are the best established psychosocial resources for protecting mental and
physical health. Social support is defined as the perception or experience
that one is loved and cared for by others, esteemed and valued, and part of a
social network of mutual assistance and obligations (Wills, 1984). Social
support can be provided by a partner, relatives, friends, coworkers, social
and community ties, and even pets (Allen, Blascovich, & Mendes, 2002).
Early research on social support classified support into several explicit forms.
Informational support occurs when one person helps another to understand
a stressful event better and determine what resources and coping strategies
may be needed to deal with it. Instrumental support involves the provision
of tangible assistance, such as financial aid, food, housing, or transportation.
Emotional support involves providing warmth and nurturance to another
person, and reassuring that person that he or she is a valuable person for
whom others care. This commonly employed taxonomy implies that the
benefits of social contact are achieved primarily during or following the
enactment of social support.
However, many of the benefits of social support accompany the perception
that social support is available if needed. The emphasis on perceived social
support is well-placed, because to have its beneficial effects, social contact need
not be explicitly supportive (e.g., Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2009). Perceived
support appears to have a dispositional quality and may arise in part from
genetic factors (Kessler, Kendler, Heath, Neale, & Eaves, 1992) and from
secure attachments formed in the early family environment (see Gallo &
Matthews, 2006; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2009; Uchino, 2009). Indeed, there
is evidence that extracting or obtaining explicit support from others can
sometimes backfire and complicate or exacerbate reactions to stressful events.
Explicit support from others may undermine self-esteem, for example, com-
municating a sense that one is inefficacious (Bolger & Amarel, 2007).
Researchers have examined whether social resources achieve their ben-
eficial effects chiefly during periods of stress or threat (the buffering hypoth-
esis), or whether they are a constant protective feature of the environment.
Generally speaking, measures of social integration, which involve tallying
up the number of social relationships in which an individual is involved, the
number of social roles a person occupies, the frequency of contact with the
network, and the number, density, and interconnectedness of relationships
show direct associations with mental and physical health benefits, but not
necessarily buffering effects during times of stress or threat (Alloway &
Bebbington, 1987; Thoits, 1995). The perception that emotional support
is available, however, both directly benefits mental and physical health and
also buffers people against psychological distress and poor health during
threatening or stressful times (Thoits, 1995).
What are the mechanisms by which social support affects mental health?
Social support no doubt provides some protection against stress through the
specific benefits that can be provided by others, that is, the functional
taxonomy described earlier. Emotional support may be protective primarily
through physiological routes. In reviews, Uchino (2006, 2009) concluded
that cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and immune functioning associated
with social support exert multiple protective biological effects (see also
Taylor, 2011).
1.6. Psychosocial resources as a composite variable

Psychosocial resources are often studied as a composite variable, as they are
intercorrelated, although only moderately so. For example, in one study
(Taylor et al., 2008), measures of self-esteem, optimism, and mastery were
correlated between 0.384 and 0.534, suggesting overlap but a degree of
independence. (A second unpublished dataset by the same research labora-
tory found very similar levels of interrelation.) Like the individual assess-
ments, composite measures have been tied to both mental and physical
health-related outcomes. In a meta-analysis of 35 investigations of the
relation between positive psychological well-being and mortality, Chida
and Steptoe (2008) found that psychosocial resources (including life satis-
faction, optimism, and sense of humor) were associated with reduced
mortality in healthy population studies, and the effects were particularly
strong for cardiovascular disease. In another study, a composite of psycho-
social resources including locus of control and self-esteem showed signifi-
cant associations with young adult health (Murasko, 2007). Using a cluster
of psychosocial resources that included optimism, mastery, self-esteem, and
social support, Taylor and colleagues found relations with positive mental
health profiles, assessed by both paper and pencil and clinical assessments of
mental health (Taylor et al., 2003a); they also related this composite measure
of psychosocial resources to lower physiological responses to laboratory
stress tasks (Taylor, Lerner, Sherman, Sage, & McDowell, 2003b). Using
data from a large-scale (N > 3000) investigation of cardiovascular risk
factors (CARDIA), Taylor and colleagues also related psychosocial
resources to better metabolic functioning (a composite variable predicting
several chronic disorders including heart disease and diabetes; Lehman,
Taylor, Kiefe, & Seeman, 2005), lower C-reactive protein (a marker of
inflammation; Taylor, Lehman, Kiefe, & Seeman, 2006), lower blood
pressure (Lehman, Taylor, Kiefe, & Seeman, 2009), and lower increases in
blood pressure over time (Lehman et al., 2009).
A number of the studies that employed composite measures of psycho-
social resources drew on Cognitive Adaptation Theory (Taylor, 1983). This
theory maintains that resources such as perceived control and self-esteem are
often generated spontaneously in response to threatening events, such as
health threats, and aid in the process of coping. Several studies have
supported this line of thinking. Pinquart, Frohlich, and Silbereisen
(2007a), for example, compared adult cancer patients with healthy controls
and found higher levels of optimism, purpose in life, and self-esteem in the
cancer patients, relative to the healthy controls, with levels of these
resources declining to those experienced by healthy adults over time.
Results were interpreted as consistent with the prediction that psychosocial
resources arise spontaneously to meet the challenge posed by threatening
events and decline over time, as the threat declines (Taylor, 1983). Ickovics
et al. (2006) followed more than 700 HIV-seropositive women and found
that psychosocial resources (in this case, positive affect, optimism over
health outcomes, and finding meaning) protected against HIV-related mor-
tality and decline in CD4 lymphocyte counts, a marker prognostic for
advancing disease. Among patients treated for coronary artery disease with
percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, Helgeson (2003) found
that positive self-views, a positive view of the future, and a sense of personal
control were associated prospectively with good adjustment to disease, even
when initial adjustment was taken into consideration. Helgeson (1992)
found that adjustment was better for cardiac patients with a strong sense
of personal control, compared to those with little sense of control. Tomich
and Helgeson (2006), however, found that perceptions of personal control
over illness (but not optimism or self-esteem) were associated with worse
physical and mental functioning and benefit-finding among women who
subsequently sustained a recurrence. Pinquart, Frohlich, and Silbereisen
(2007b) found that high levels of social support and optimism among cancer
patients facing chemotherapy predicted more positive changes and fewer
negative changes over time, leading to greater psychological well-being.
They concluded that patients with low levels of psychosocial resources are
at risk for finding nothing beneficial in adversity (p. 907).
2. Mediators Linking Psychosocial Resources

to Mental and Physical Outcomes
It is not immediately obvious why psychosocial resources should have
beneficial effects on mental and physical health-related outcomes. Although
some social support efforts include tangible assistance and information, why
thinking about the benefits of social relationships, contemplating a situation
more optimistically, with an enhanced sense of mastery, or mustering self-
related resources would facilitate health outcomes requires more
explication.
In this section, we address the possibilities that psychosocial resources
affect mental and physical health outcomes by means of their associations
with emotional states (affect), by promoting approach-oriented coping, and
by affecting neural regulation of stress responses and downstream biological
responses to stress. These are not mutually exclusive mechanisms, of course,

as all have been implicated in the linkages between psychosocial resources
and mental and physical health outcomes.
2.1. Negative and positive affect

All of the psychosocial resources reviewed have an underlying positive
emotional tone, and so the question arises as to whether the absence of
negative affect, the presence of positive affect, or both explain their benefits.
Psychosocial resources may be (negatively) tied to negative affectivity.
People high in negative affectivity/neuroticism express distress, discomfort,
and dissatisfaction across a wide range of situations (Gunthert, Cohen, &
Armeli, 1999; Watson & Clark, 1984). They are more likely to be depressed
(Francis, Fyer, & Clarkin, 1986) and to engage in poor health habits such as
excessive drinking (Frances, Franklin, & Flavin, 1986), which may predis-
pose them to higher rates of illness. Neuroticism is associated with an
increased risk for arthritis, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, stomach
problems, gallbladder difficulties, and ulcers (Goodwin, Cox, & Clara,
2006), as well as asthma, arthritis, headaches, coronary artery disease
(Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987), and greater susceptibility to the com-
mon cold following infection (Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, & Skoner,
2003b). Pessimistic and anxious adults have higher blood pressure than
more optimistic adults (Raikkonen, Matthews, Flory, Owens, & Gump,
1999) and have higher levels of inflammation (Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire,
Robles, & Glaser, 2003), explained in part by their enhanced likelihood of
being obese, hypertensive, and diabetic (Roy et al., 2010). Chronic negative
affectivity is also associated with elevated heart rate (Daly, Delaney, Doran,
Harmon, & MacLachlan, 2010) and with risk factors for coronary heart
disease (Midei & Matthews, 2009). Hemingway and Marmot (1999) found
that in 11 of 11 prospective studies, depression and anxiety predicted coro-
nary heart disease in healthy adults, and in 6 of 6 studies, these states predicted
disease progression. Negative affectivity has been related to a higher risk of
mortality in middle and old age as well (Weiss, Gale, Batty, & Deary, 2009;
Wilson et al., 2005).
So robust are the relations between negative affectivity/neuroticism and
health outcomes that psychological distress involving the negative emotions
of depression, anxiety, and hostility are believed to form the core of a
disease-prone personality (Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987; Suls &
Bunde, 2005). Increased adrenocortical activity may provide a piece of
the pathway linking negative affectivity to adverse health outcomes (Polk,
Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, & Kirschbaum, 2005). Thus, it is possible that
psychosocial resources represent the absence of this toxic set of risk factors.
Researchers have recently examined whether positive emotional states
are protective of mental and physical health (Cohen & Pressman, 2006;
Pressman & Cohen, 2005), and so whether positive affective states might
explain the relation of psychosocial resources to mental and physical health
is also a viable question. Positive and negative affect are correlated but
surprisingly independent of each other (Diener & Emmons, 1984), and
both positive and negative affect have been shown to have effects on
health-related biological processes independent of the other (Ryff et al.,
2006; Steptoe, Wardle, & Marmot, 2005). Hence, the importance of
positive emotional states may be considered apart from the significance of
negative affectivity.
With respect to mental health outcomes, being able to experience
positive emotions, even in the context of intensely stressful events, appears
to be one way of coping that resilient people draw on (Tugade &
Fredrickson, 2004). For example, in one study (Fredrickson, Tugade,
Waugh, & Larkin, 2003), being able to experience positive emotions such
as gratitude or love following the 9/11 attacks enabled many people to cope
with these distressing events and even to experience post traumatic growth.
Fredrickson (2004) has suggested that positive emotions enable people to
broaden their thought-action repertoire through which they can build
additional personal resources (i.e., the broaden-and-build theory of positive
emotions).
In terms of physical health outcomes, Pressman and Cohen (2005)
reported that trait positive affect is associated with increased longevity,
lower morbidity, decreased symptoms and pain, and increased longevity
among older community dwelling individuals. A limited amount of
research has suggested that positive emotions promote resistance to illness
(Cohen, Alper, Doyle, Treanor, & Turner, 2006). People high in trait
positive affect perceive their bodies more positively, and they may also
experience changes in affect-based physiological processes as well, although
the evidence on this point is less clear (Cohen et al., 2006).
In a meta-analysis of 35 studies, Chida and Steptoe (2008) found that
positive affect was associated with reduced mortality in healthy populations
and with reduced death rates in patients infected with HIV or at risk for
cardiovascular disease or renal failure. Several additional (at least partially
overlapping) meta-analyses have reported a relation between positive well-
being and mortality as well (Howell, Kern, & Lyubomirsky, 2007;
Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). On the whole, the evidence that
positive affect is associated with physical health and longevity in healthy
populations is stronger than evidence that it predicts survival in those with
extant illness (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Research attempting to link
positive affect to health behaviors has revealed a mixed pattern; some studies
show positive relations, others no relations (Diener & Chan, 2011; Steptoe,
Dockray, & Wardle, 2009).
Positive emotions affect biological mediators thought to bridge between
psychosocial resources and health outcomes: specifically, a positive emotional
style has been tied to lower cortisol levels (Polk et al., 2005), to better immune
responses to vaccinations (Marsland, Cohen, Rabin, & Manuck, 2001), and to
lower levels of glycosylated hemoglobin in older adults (critical, e.g., in the
management of Type I and Type II diabetes; Tsenkova, Love, Singer, & Ryff,
2007). Positive affect has been tied to faster skin barrier recovery (Robles,
Brooks, & Pressman, 2009) and to more rapid cardiovascular recovery follow-
ing laboratory stressors (Fredrickson, Mancuso, Branigan, & Tugade, 2000).
Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) reported an effect size of 0.38 between induced
positive affect and physiological outcomes including immune functioning and
cardiovascular reactivity (see also Howell, Kern, & Lyubomirsky, 2007;
Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Well-being has been tied to indicators of better
immune functioning (sIgA antibody production), higher pain tolerance, and
lower cortisol levels (Howell et al., 2007).
The research on positive affect implies that it may be one factor that
underlies the benefits of psychosocial resources, and trait positive affect might
even be considered a psychosocial resource in its own right. Pause for this
conclusion, however, comes from research on cheerfulness. Cheerful people
die somewhat sooner than people who are not cheerful (Friedman et al., 1993).
Cheerful people may be more careless about their health and, as a result,
encounter health risks (Martin et al., 2002). Related findings have been
reported by Pressman and Cohen (2005), such that people with extremely
high levels of positive affect, especially in the context of end-stage disease, may
show an increased risk for mortality. McCarron, Gunnett, Harrison, Okasha,
and Davey Smith (2003) found that hypomania predicted enhanced risk of
cardiovascular mortality, and Ritz and Steptoe (2000) reported a relation of
extremely positive mood to decreased pulmonary function.
Do negative affectivity and/or positive affect explain the effects of
psychosocial resources on health outcomes? To answer this question defin-
itively would require more evidence than currently exists. However, the
available evidence suggests that the effects of psychosocial resources are
not explained entirely by the absence of negative affectivity or by the
presence of positive affect. Although the relation between optimism
and self-reported physical symptoms may be explained by the negative
relation of optimism to negative affectivity (Smith, Pope et al., 1989),
other outcomes such as well-being and health-based outcomes are not
as conceptually or operationally confounded with affectivity (see
Aspinwall & Brunhart, 2000). Kubzansky et al. (2001) found that optimism
protected against nonfatal myocardial infarction and coronary heart
disease death even after controlling for depression and anxiety. Scheier,
Carver, and Bridges (1994) analyzed data from over 4000 participants and
showed that the associations of optimism with depression and coping
remained significant even when measures of neuroticism and negative
affectivity were controlled. The adaptiveness of control perceptions does
not appear to be explained by the absence of negative affectivity either;
rather, perceptions of control appear to play a causal role in reducing anxiety

and depression that may surround an illness (Taylor, Helgeson, Reed, &
Skokan, 1991). Self-affirmation studies generally find that affirmations of
important values do not affect self-reported mood (Fein & Spencer, 1997;
Schmeichel & Martens, 2005; Sherman et al., 2000; Spencer, Fein, &
Lomore, 2001), and manipulations of mood do not produce self-affirmation
effects (Steele, Spencer, & Lynch, 1993).
Positive affect and the absence of negative affect are certainly correlated
with psychosocial resources, and they may partially account for the benefi-
cial effects of resources, especially on psychological well-being. However, as
the above evidence suggests, psychosocial resources appear to have benefits
over and above their associations with affect. Definitive tests are difficult to
conduct, however. Controlling for positive and/or negative affect in the
calculation of the resources-health relation almost certainly represents a
statistical overcorrection. As Suls and Bunde (2005) also point out, it is
difficult to appropriately control for the effects of positive and negative
emotional states relating resources to illness because the emotional states
themselves are likely to reflect the fact of advancing illness. Thus, the
significance of affect in the relation of psychosocial resources to mental
and physical health outcomes is by no means resolved.
2.2. Coping
Psychosocial resources may be related to mental and physical outcomes via
fostering the use of approach-oriented coping strategies. Coping is defined as
action-oriented and intrapsychic efforts to manage the demands of the envi-
ronment. Although a number of coping frameworks have been advanced, one
that is gaining traction emphasizes the approach-avoidance continuum (e.g.,
Solberg Nes & Segerstrom, 2006). Approach-avoidance reflects a core moti-
vational construct (e.g., Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000) that has been
applied across multiple domains within psychology, including both animal
and human research, and it can be profitably applied not only to threatening or
highly stressful circumstances but also to the activities of everyday life. As such,
it may be particularly well suited as a candidate linking both dispositional and
situational resources to beneficial outcomes.
Approach-oriented coping involves active efforts, such as problem-solving,
seeking social support, and creating outlets for emotional expression. As such, it
maps onto the behavioral activation system (BAS; Gray, 1990). Coping
through avoidance includes both cognitive and behavioral strategies, such as
distracting oneself from stressful circumstances, minimizing threatening events,
avoiding thinking about them, and substance use. As such, it maps onto the
behavioral inhibition system (BIS). As already reviewed, research ties opti-
mism, mastery, and self-esteem to more active and persistent coping efforts.
Approach-related coping has, in turn, been tied to positive psychological states
and to better health outcomes. In particular, positive reappraisal of stressors,

social approach, and problem-focused coping can lead to increases in well-
being (Billings et al., 2000; Sharkansky et al., 2000). Approach-oriented coping
has been tied to a more vigorous cellular immune response at high levels of
stress (Stowell, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 2001), to lower levels of pro-coagu-
lant activity (Aschbacher et al., 2005), and to lower levels of glycosylated
hemoglobin (Tsenkova, Love, Singer, & Ryff, 2008), among other physiolog-
ical benefits. Coping strategies do not appear to be simple proxies for psycho-
social resources. Rather, they appear to explain unique variance in adjustment
(Murberg, Bru, & Stephens, 2002).
Although avoidance strategies can be associated with good adjustment to
stressful situations in the short term (e.g., a visit to the dentist), in the long
term, attempting to avoid thoughts and feelings around chronic persistent
stressors leads to elevated psychological distress (see Taylor & Stanton, 2007
for a review). Studies from health psychology suggest that avoidance coping
undermines treatment regimen adherence and health behaviors and is
associated with the progression of chronic disease and a higher risk of
mortality in several patient groups, including cancer patients and those
with congestive heart failure (see Taylor & Stanton, 2007 for a review).
Avoidance coping is often unsuccessful, with the result that stress-related
thoughts and emotions intrude into consciousness. Even mice who engage
in avoidance coping when confronted with stress incur health risks (Vegas,
Fano, Brain, Alonso, & Azpiroz, 2006).
On the whole, avoidance coping looks more detrimental to mental and
physical health outcomes than approach coping is beneficial. However, this
may be due, at least in part, to a methodological artifact. Most stress studies
focus on negative affect and poor adjustment as outcome variables, rather
than on positive outcomes. Positive and negative emotional responses are
only modestly correlated, as noted, and so the fact that approach coping
primarily predicts positive reactions to circumstances may explain the lesser
evidence for its beneficial effects on adjustment.
To summarize, there is good evidence that psychosocial resources foster
active, approach-oriented coping, which may account in part or substan-
tially for the beneficial effects those resources have on mental and physical
health outcomes.
2.3. Neural mechanisms mediating the effects
of psychosocial resources on mental and
physical health outcomes
A growing body of evidence focuses on the neural pathways whereby
psychosocial resources affect mental and physical health outcomes.
This work has been spearheaded by growing understanding of how threat-
ening and stressful circumstances are processed in the brain. The amygdala
and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) are associated with threat
detection, serving an alarm function that mobilizes other neural regions,

such as the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and the hypothalamus to
promote adaptive responses to stress. The amygdala is sensitive to environ-
mental cues signaling danger or novelty (e.g., Hariri, Bookheimer, &
Mazziotta, 2000) and predicts how unpleasant negative stimuli are reported
to be (Lane et al., 1997). The dACC responds to conflict in incoming
information (Carter et al., 2000) and to social distress (Eisenberger,
Lieberman, & Williams, 2003).
A neural region that appears critical for regulating the magnitude of threat
responses is the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC; Hariri et al., 2000;
Ochsner et al., 2004). Activation of the right VLPFC can directly down-
regulate activation of the amygdala and dACC (Eisenberger et al., 2003;
Hariri, Tessitore, Mattay, Fera, & Weinberger, 2002; Lieberman et al.,
2006). Thus, RVLPFC regulation of threat responses in the dACC and the
amygdala represents a viable candidate for how psychosocial resources may
modulate stress responses. Notably, the LPFC is implicated in motivational
processes and cognitive activity in service of reward expectancy (Watanabe,
2007), again suggesting overlap between approach-oriented coping asso-
ciated with psychosocial resources and adaptive goal-directed behavior.
Do psychosocial resources mute perceptions of stress and threat or do
they enable people to regulate their responses to threat and stress more
effectively? Taylor et al. (2008) examined these two hypotheses regarding
the relation of psychosocial resources to patterns of brain activation. The
first maintains that psychosocial resources are tied to decreased sensitivity to
threat, leading to lower activation of brain regions implicated in stress such
as the amygdala. The second is that psychosocial resources are associated
with enhanced prefrontal inhibition of stress responses through VLPFC
regulation of regions implicated in threat responses, such as the amygdala.
In a three-session investigation, participants completed measures of psycho-
social resources; they responded to threat cues (pictures of faces conveying
negative emotions) in the scanner; and their neuroendocrine responses to
stressful laboratory tasks (public speaking, mental arithmetic) were assessed.
With respect to the neuroimaging task, in one condition, participants
simply observed the threatening faces (observation); in another condition,
they labeled the specific emotion that was pictured (threat regulation task);
in the third condition, they indicated the gender of the pictured person
(control task). Psychosocial resources were associated with greater RVLPF
activation and less amygdala activity during a threat regulation task, but not
with lower amygdala activity during observation of threat cues. Psychoso-
cial resources were also tied to lower neuroendocrine stress responses,
specifically cortisol levels. Mediational analyses indicated that the relation
of psychosocial resources to low cortisol reactivity was mediated by lower
amygdala activity during the threat regulation task. Thus, it appears that
psychosocial resources are associated with lower cortisol responses to stress
by means of regulating threat responses, and not by decreased sensitivity to

threat overall. This pattern is consistent with the idea that psychosocial
resources lead to active coping efforts and not simply to insensitivity to risk
or threat.
Approach coping processes link reliably to patterns of brain activity as
well. The BAS, which, as noted, is assumed to underlie approach-related
coping, is organized largely by the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system
and is associated with striatal dopamine projections to areas in the lateral and
orbitofrontal cortices (Rolls, 1996). BAS is associated with goal-directed
behavior, a promotion regulatory focus (Amodio, Shah, Sigelman, Brazy, &
Harmon-Jones, 2004), and positive emotions (Davidson, Ekman, Saron,
Senulis, & Friesen, 1990), consistent with research on approach coping. By
contrast, the BIS, which is believed to underlie avoidant coping, is asso-
ciated with a neural circuit organized by monoamine neurotransmitter
systems, including noradrenergic and serotonergic networks and their asso-
ciated neural structures. The heart of the noradrenergic system is the locus
coeruleus, located in the brainstem. In humans and monkeys, the locus
coeruleus has modulatory noradrenergic effects on the ACC (Berridge &
Waterhouse, 2003). Direct links from avoidant coping to heightened ACC
functioning via these pathways have not yet been made, however. None-
theless, these are also promising neural avenues for understanding the
relation of psychosocial resources to health outcomes via their connection
to active versus avoidant coping.
Some research has specifically focused on the relation of optimistic
future projections to patterns of brain activation. Activity in the rostral
ACC is correlated with trait optimism (Sharot, Riccardi, Raio, & Phelps,
2007). Research has also shown enhanced activation in the amygdala and in
the rostral ACC when imagining positive future events relative to negative
ones (Sharot et al., 2007). These areas are involved in monitoring emotional
salience and may mediate the optimistic bias (Sharot et al., 2007).
(These same regions show irregularities in depression; Drevets et al.,
1997.) Thus, the integration of emotional and autobiographical information
may enable the projection of positive future events, leading to optimism
about the future.
In several instances, we have noted parallels between coping with stress
and goal pursuit. Accordingly, one might expect to see that patterns of brain
activation that are commonly seen in conjunction with personal goal
striving and pursuit would also be seen when psychosocial resources are
minimizing or reducing responses to stress or threat. DArgembeau et al.
(2009) identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate
cortex as brain regions distinctively activated by imagining personal future
events, relative to nonpersonal future events. These regions overlap with
activations that engage self-knowledge, and thus, the VMPFC and PCC
may be implicated in mental representations generated with respect to

personal goals. To the extent that goal striving and the deployment of
psychosocial resources for coping with stressful events overlap, one might
expect to see similar patterns in coping with stress.
When thinking about personal goals and striving to meet them are
salient, one tends to see patterns of activation in reward centers of the
brain. Active coping with stress might well lead to similar activation in
reward centers. There is some evidence for this in the extraversion litera-
ture. Extraversion is associated with activation in the ventral striatum,
amygdala, and other reward-sensitive regions, areas that are innervated by
dopamine (Depue & Collins, 1999). These areas appear to be critical to the
processing of incentives (e.g., Breiter, Aharon, Kahneman, Dale, & Shizgal,
2001; Knutson, Fong, Adams, Varner, & Hommer, 2001; Kringelbach,
ODoherty, Rolls, & Andrews, 2003; ODoherty, Deichman, Critchley,
& Dolan, 2002), although there is some question as to whether these areas
are engaged primarily in response to the receipt of rewards, the anticipation
of rewards, or both (Cohen et al., 2005; Knutson & Bhanji, 2006).
Recent research has related social support processes to patterns of brain
activation. For example, functional neuroimaging studies have related
maternal affection and romantic attachment to regions in the brain asso-
ciated with reward-seeking, including the caudate putamen and ventral
tegmentum, as well as parts of the dorsolateral and VLPFC (Aron et al.,
2005; Bartels & Zeki, 2004). Coan, Schaefer, and Davidson (2006) manipu-
lated hand holding from either a spouse or a stranger during anticipation of
electric shock and found downregulation of areas associated with threat,
compared to no hand holding, especially when holding the hand of ones
spouse; regions implicated included the ventral ACC, the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex, the caudate, the superior colliculus, the posterior cingu-
late, the post central gyrus, and the supramarginal gyrus. Addressing the role
of chronic perceptions of social support, a three-session study (Eisenberger,
Taylor, Gable, Hilmert, & Lieberman, 2007) found that people who inter-
acted regularly with supportive individuals (assessed over 9 days via experi-
ence sampling methodology) showed diminished dACC reactivity to social
rejection in an fMRI laboratory task and diminished cortisol reactivity
during laboratory stressors. Individual differences in dACC activity
mediated the relation between social support and cortisol reactivity. Thus,
social support may influence downstream biological stress responses by
modulating neurocognitive reactivity to social stressors, which in turn
attenuates neuroendocrine stress responses.
To summarize, pathways involving (a) VLPFC regulation of threat
responses, (b) activation of brain regions involved in behavioral activation
generally and goal pursuit more specifically, and (c) activation in reward
centers in the brain represent promising avenues for understanding brain
mechanisms underlying the deployment of psychosocial resources for man-

aging stressful and challenging events.
2.4. Biological mediators

Psychosocial resources and their concomitant patterns of activation in the
brain ultimately play out in physiological, neuroendocrine, and immuno-
logic stress responses. Researchers since the 1930s (Cannon, 1932) have
maintained that the links between threatening events and adverse health
outcomes involve the bodys physiological stress regulatory systems, com-
monly referred to as the fight or flight response. When a person experi-
ences a threat, the body is rapidly mobilized to attack the threat or to flee
from it. This arousal is mediated primarily by the sympathetic nervous
system and the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis.
Specifically, stress engages sympathetic arousal, which stimulates the
medulla of the adrenal glands, which, in turn, secrete the catecholamines
epinephrine and norepinephrine. Sympathetic arousal leads to increased
blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, and constriction of peripheral blood
vessels, among other changes. In addition, the catecholamines impact a
variety of tissues in the body and modulate the immune system. Stress also
activates the hypothalamus, which releases corticotropin-releasing hormone
(CRH), which stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic
hormone (ACTH), which, in turn, stimulates the adrenal cortex to release
glucocorticoids. Of these, cortisol has been most heavily studied. It acts to
conserve sources of carbohydrates and affects inflammation in the case of an
injury. It also provides the feedback mechanism to restore the body to its
steady state following stress. Levels of cortisol are, accordingly, often used in
experimental studies as a neuroendocrine indicator of how much stress a
person has experienced.
The neural threat detectors described in the previous section set in
motion a cascade of responses via projections to the hypothalamus and
LPFC (Davis, 1989; LeDoux, 1996). Studies have shown connections
between neural structures critical to threat detection and the hypothalamus,
which is the origin of downstream sympathetic and HPA responses to
threat. Specifically, the amygdala has dense projections to the hypothalamus
(Ghashghaei & Barbas, 2002), and the ACC projects to the paraventricular
nucleus of the hypothalamus (Risold, Thompson, & Swanson, 1997), the
specific region of the hypothalamus that triggers the cascade of events
ultimately leading to cortisol release. Stimulation of both the amygdala
and the ACC has been associated with increases in blood pressure and
cortisol levels in both animals and humans (Frankel, Jenkins, & Wright,
1978; Setekleiv, Skaug, & Kaada, 1961).
These are all normal reactions to stressful or threatening events. How-
ever, when these reactions recur repeatedly or chronically, the groundwork
for illness can be laid. Excessive discharge of epinephrine and norepineph-

rine can lead to suppression of cellular immune function; produce hemody-
namic changes such as increased blood pressure and heart rate; provoke
variations in normal heart rhythm such as ventricular arrhythmias, which
may be a precursor to sudden death; and produce neural and chemical
imbalances that can contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders.
The catecholamines also have effects on lipid levels and free fatty acids that
are important in the development of atherosclerosis. Corticosteroids have
immunosuppressive effects that can compromise the functioning of the
immune system over the long term. Prolonged cortisol secretion has also
been related to the destruction of neurons in the hippocampus, which can
lead to problems with verbal functioning, memory, and concentration
(Sapolsky, Krey, & McEwen, 1985; Stein-Behrens, Mattson, Chang, Yeh,
& Sapolsky, 1994). Pronounced HPA activation is common in depression
and may be a causal factor in its development (Connor & Leonard, 1998;
Leonard, 2000).
Chronic or repeated activation of these stress regulatory systems can
ultimately compromise the functioning of the systems. McEwen (1998)
refers to these mounting adverse effects on stress regulatory systems as
allostatic load. As physiological systems within the body repeatedly fluctuate
to meet the demands imposed by stress, over time, there is a buildup of
allostatic load, the physiological costs of chronic exposure to fluctuating or
heightened neural and neuroendocrine responses that occur across multiple
physiological systems. Biological markers of allostatic load include decreases
in cell-mediated immunity, the inability to shut off cortisol in response to
stress, low heart rate variability, elevated epinephrine levels, a decrease in
hippocampal volume, high plasma fibrinogen, and elevated blood pressure,
among other changes. Many of these changes occur normally with age, so, to
the extent that they occur earlier in response to chronic stress, allostatic load
may be thought of as accelerated aging. Over time, allostatic load is impli-
cated in the accumulation of risk factors, development of several chronic
diseases, and a heightened risk of death (Glei, Goldman, Chuang, &
Weinstein, 2007; Karlamangla, Singer, & Seeman, 2006).
Chronic and recurring stress can also impair the immune systems ability
to respond to hormonal signals that terminate inflammation in response to
stress. That is, in response to many stressors, pro-inflammatory cytokines are
released, which would normally diminish as stress reduces. However, stress
can reduce the ability to suppress production of these pro-inflammatory
cytokines (e.g., Miller, Cohen, & Ritchey, 2002). Slavich, Way,
Eisenberger, and Taylor (2010) illustrated this pathway. In their study,
participants were exposed to social rejection in an fMRI task, which led
to elevated activity in the dACC, as has been found in previous studies
(Eisenberger et al., 2003). Greater activity in the dACC and the anterior
insula, brain regions that have both been associated with processing rejec-
tion-related distress and negative affect, were, in turn, tied to enhanced
inflammatory activity. Because chronic inflammation is implicated in many
diseases, including depression and coronary artery disease, low-grade
inflammation may be an important pathway by which stress responses affect
the likelihood of illness. Psychosocial resources can mute these relations
(Friedman, Hayney, Love, Singer, & Ryff, 2007).
Finally, chronic or recurrent stress can affect recovery from stress,
reflected in the speed and ease with which biological stress regulatory
systems can return to their normal functioning. The theory of allostatic
load suggests that the inability to recover quickly from a stressful event may
be a marker for the cumulative damage that stress has caused. With chronic
or repeated stress, both sympathetic activation and HPA activation can last
longer and, potentially, widen the window of susceptibility to illness and
injury (e.g., Perna & McDowell, 1995).
The accumulating damage that results from chronic or recurring stress
interacts with genetic vulnerabilities and with poor health behaviors, such as
little exercise, high-fat diet, and smoking, all of which can exacerbate or hasten
the accumulation of allostatic load (Ng & Jeffery, 2003). They may also interact
with individual differences in reactivity, which are predispositions, determined
by genes, prenatal experiences, and/or early life experiences, to be highly
reactive to stress in sympathetic, neuroendocrine, and/or immune function-
ing. People prone to high reactivity may, as a result, be especially vulnerable to
stress-related disorders in both the short term and long term (Boyce et al., 1995;
Jacobs et al., 2006). Psychosocial resources may reduce the magnitude of
responses to stress, their frequency, or both, thus leading to lesser strain on
biological stress regulatory systems and lesser accumulation of allostatic load.
What is the evidence linking psychosocial resources to health outcomes
via these routes? We have noted several examples in previous sections, and
several additional investigations speak to this issue. In a study of the elderly,
high self-esteem was associated with lower levels of cortisol and adreno-
corticotropin hormone in response to a challenge (Seeman et al., 1995). In a
study examining the impact of self-enhancement on physiological responses
to stress (Taylor et al., 2003b), people who regarded themselves especially
positively showed reduced blood pressure and heart rate, faster cardiovas-
cular recovery, and lower baseline cortisol levels, relative to those who were
less self-enhancing. Creswell et al. (2005) found that cortisol responses to
laboratory stress tasks were significantly lower if people had self-affirmed an
important value prior to going through the tasks. The links from control
and mastery to health outcomes may also be mediated by immune
responses. For example, among adolescents with asthma, beliefs in personal
control are associated with better immune responses related to their disease
(Chen, Fisher, Bacharier, & Strunk, 2003).
3. Origins of Psychosocial Resources

The preceding sections have characterized psychosocial resources and
indicated some likely pathways by which they exert beneficial effects on
mental and physical outcomes. These include affective/emotional routes;
active approach-oriented coping; neural activation of brain regions impli-
cated in stress and its regulation; and downstream cardiovascular, neuroen-
docrine, and immunologic functioning. As noted, these are not mutually
exclusive pathways.
Where do these psychosocial resources come from? Understanding their
antecedents may be pivotal for intervening to promote successful adjust-
ment and good health. Accordingly, we next turn to origins of psychosocial
resources in the early environment, genetic predispositions, and their
interaction.
3.1. Early environment

An early family environment marked by harsh or conflict-ridden parenting
is reliably associated with deficits in offspring psychosocial resources and
with difficulty in managing challenging circumstances (see Repetti, Taylor,
& Seeman, 2002 for a review). Research indicates that offspring from harsh
family environments may overreact to threatening circumstances, respond-
ing aggressively to situations that are only modestly stressful (e.g., Reid &
Crisafulli, 1990), but may also respond by tuning out stressful circumstances,
as through avoidant coping ( Johnson & Pandina, 1991; Valentiner,
Holahan, & Moos, 1994). Poor psychosocial resources related to early
family environment may appear in latent form in early childhood as inter-
nalizing or externalizing behaviors and may contribute to chronic psycho-
logical distress (Repetti et al., 2002). Adolescence is a time when the frontal
cortex develops more fully, and so it may be a critical period when
psychosocial resources begin to coalesce, evolving into optimism, a sense
of control, self-esteem, and perceptions of social support. For people from
harsh backgrounds, developmental precursors may instead evolve into
avoidant coping, pessimism, a low sense of control, a poor sense of self,
and low perceived social support, further stabilizing in adulthood as poor
psychosocial resources (Repetti et al., 2002). Attachment processes may be
implicated in these relations, such that a supportive early family environ-
ment fosters a secure attachment, and a harsh family environment fosters an
avoidant attachment: these attachment orientations may shape physiological
responses to social interactions across the lifespan and, subsequently, affect
health (e.g., Gallo & Matthews, 2006).
A harsh family upbringing has been related to higher levels of depression
(Repetti et al., 2002); to preclinical risk factors for mental and physical
health disorders, including elevated autonomic and cortisol responses to

threatening circumstances (Seeman & McEwen, 1996); to risk factors for
mental and physical health disorders, including C-reactive protein (Taylor,
Lehman, et al., 2006); and to major mental and physical health disorders
(Felitti et al., 1998). Hanson and Chen (2010) reported that a harsh early
family environment was associated with greater cortisol output and less sleep
in young adults in response to severe stress. They concluded that the
childhood environment can have long-term effects on biological responses
to daily stress, creating vulnerability to illness. Thus, the existing literature
provides a basis for linking a harsh early childhood to the compromised
development of psychosocial resources, as well as risk for adverse stress-
related mental and physical health outcomes. Several studies provide evi-
dence that psychosocial resources mediate the relation between a harsh early
environment and health outcomes, at least in part (Lehman et al., 2005,
2009; Taylor, Lehman, et al., 2006).
Evidence for these links also exists at the neural level. In a task involving
the labeling of emotions pictured in faces, Taylor, Eisenberger, Saxbe,
Lehman, and Lieberman (2006a) found that young adults who had grown
up in supportive families showed expected and relatively modest amygdala
reactions to threat cues (fearful/angry faces) and strong activation of the
right VLPFC, which was negatively related to amygdala activity; this pattern
suggests regulation of limbic response via cortical responses to threatening
stimuli. By contrast, young adults from harsh early family environments
showed a strong positive correlation between right VLPFC and amygdala
activation, suggesting that early family environment may be associated not
only with poor psychosocial resources, but with corresponding dysregula-
tion in the neural pathways involved in regulating responses to threat.
3.1.1. Socioeconomic status

In addition to the family environment, there are other aspects of the early
life environment that confer risk for poor psychosocial resources and long-
term adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Chief among these
factors is low childhood SES.
There are well-established socioeconomic and racial disparities in mental
and physical health outcomes, such that the higher one moves on the SES
ladder, the lower ones risk for psychological distress and for adverse health
outcomes (Adler & Rehkopf, 2008). The relation is, for the most part, linear
rather than asymptotic, which means that each step up the ladder brings
increased resistance to psychological distress, to disease, and to premature
mortality. Psychosocial resources are a likely contributor to these disparities.
Early childhood SES is believed to be a pivotal context for the develop-
ment of psychosocial resources. Research indicates that low childhood SES
is tied to perceptions of little control, pessimism, and poor social support,
factors that may link SES to poor health (Adler et al., 1999; Finkelstein,
Kubzansky, Capitman, & Goodman, 2007; Gallo, de los Monteros, &

Shivpuri, 2009; Repetti et al., 2002; Taylor & Seeman, 1999). For example,
there is an SES gradient in pessimism (but not optimism) (Taylor & Seeman,
1999), suggesting that harsh early life experiences contribute to the devel-
opment of enduring pessimistic expectations (Carver et al., 2010). Among
low-SES individuals who do have strong beliefs in personal mastery, mental
and physical health outcomes are equivalent to those seen in high-SES
groups (Lachman & Weaver, 1998). To a lesser extent, self-esteem shows
an SES gradient (Adler et al., 1999). Perceived social support demonstrates a
strong SES gradient, such that those of higher SES in childhood and/or
adulthood report greater social support resources (Kessler et al., 1992). SES
also links to coping style. In one study, exposure to uncontrollable stressors
was associated with greater avoidant coping in impoverished women,
which was, in turn, associated with an enhanced risk for depression
(Rayburn et al., 2005). Lack of social support, which is distributed by
SES, also can prompt avoidance oriented coping under stress (Manning,
Catley, Harris, Mayo, & Ahluwalia, 2005).
Matthews and colleagues (Gallo, Bogart, Vranceanu, & Matthews, 2005;
Gallo & Matthews, 2003) have proposed a Reserve Capacity Model,
maintaining that psychosocial resources are significantly associated with
SES level, such that the higher one is in SES, the greater ones reserve
capacity to deal with stressful events. In an empirical test of these ideas,
women with varying levels of SES monitored their positive and negative
psychosocial experiences and emotions across 2 days. Measures of psycho-
social resources included perceived control, positive affect, and social strain.
Low SES was associated with lower levels of these resources, and low
perceived control and social strain contributed to the association between
SES and well-being (Gallo et al., 2005, 2009; Matthews, Gallo, & Taylor,
2010). Resources appear to play a role of direct mediation as opposed to
moderation (Matthews et al., 2010). Indeed, the evidence for the impor-
tance of psychosocial resources as a mediator of the effect of low SES on
poor health is stronger than the evidence suggesting that stress mediates this
relation (Matthews et al., 2010).
3.1.2. Genetic origins of psychosocial resources

In addition to origins in the early environment, there are genetic origins of
psychosocial resources. Behavioral genetics studies using twin methodology
estimate that approximately 25% of the variance in optimism is genetically
based (Plomin et al., 1992); there is moderate genetic influence on self-esteem
(e.g., Roy, Neale, & Kendler, 1995); and there is a larger genetic contribution
to the perception of available social support (e.g., Kessler et al., 1992). As
much as 50% of the variance in experienced loneliness appears to have genetic
bases (Boomsma, Willemsen, Dolan, Hawkley, & Cacioppo, 2005). To the
best of our knowledge, genetic bases of mastery have not been examined.
Using twin study methodology, behavioral genetics investigations have

also estimated the genetic contribution to active and avoidant coping
strategies, one of the likely mediators between psychosocial resources and
health outcomes. Moderate genetic influences have been found for both
(e.g., Kato & Pedersen, 2005; Kendler, Kessler, Heath, Neale, & Eaves,
1991), and both shared and unshared environmental factors appear to
contribute to these coping strategies (Mellins, Gatz, & Baker, 1996). How-
ever, research is mixed on whether genetic contributions to coping overlap
with genetic contributions to dispositional psychosocial resources, such as
optimism, self-esteem, and other personality factors (Busjahn, Faulhaber,
Freier, & Luft, 1999; Kato & Pedersen, 2005).
At least some of the genetic contribution to effective coping may stem
from genetic bases of approach-related behavior underpinned by dopami-
nergic pathways (Reuter & Hennig, 2005). Activity within the dopamine
system appears to be involved in regulating emotional responsivity to
stressors (Ebstein et al., 1996; Giorgi et al., 2003; Lakatos et al., 2003;
Reuter & Hennig, 2005). The relation of genetic polymorphisms in the
dopamine system to executive functioning in the prefrontal cortex (PFC)
more generally suggests that psychosocial resources may reduce stress
responses via PFC downregulation of activity in brain regions that respond
to threat, including the amygdala, dACC, and hypothalamus. As such, the
neural pathway implicating cortical regulation of brain regions implicated in
stress responses appears, not surprisingly, to be mirrored in genetics research
as well.
Psychosocial resources may also operate via the moderation of the
expression of genetic contributors to psychological distress. Polymorphisms
in the serotonin system have been especially implicated. For example, Hariri
et al. (2005) used fMRI to examine the relation of the 5-HTTLPR to
amygdala responses to threat-relevant stimuli. They found that people
carrying the s allele of the 5-HTTLPR had stronger amygdala responses
to fearful stimuli in comparison with those homozygous for the l allele.
Studies have shown that this short allele of the serotonin transporter gene is
related to trait anxiety (Schinka, Busch, & Robichaux-Keene, 2004); to
depression in conjunction with life stress (e.g., Caspi et al., 2003); to
neuroticism (Sen et al., 2004); to amygdala hyperactivity to threat in healthy
people (Hariri et al., 2005); and (negatively) to extraversion (Gillihan,
Farah, Sankoorikal, Breland, & Brodkin, 2007). Polymorphisms in the
serotonin transporter gene have also been implicated in ACC function
(Canli et al., 2005), and other genes in the serotonin system may also be
implicated. The G allele of the serotonin receptor 1A (5-HT1a) gene has
been tied to neuroticism and harm avoidance (Strobel, Lesch, Jatzke,
Paetzold, & Brocke, 2003). An SNP in the 5-HTR2a receptor gene has
been associated with anxiety-related traits and (negatively) with sociability,
and the T allele of the 5-HTR2a is associated with higher activity level and
sociability and lower level of anxiety-related traits (Golimbet, Alfimova, &

Mitiushina, 2004). The G-1438A polymorphism of the 5-HTR2a receptor
gene has been related to introversion and sociality and may thus be related to
social support processes (Gillihan et al., 2007).
With respect to social relationships, researchers have suggested that the
social pain of rejection or social isolation may overlap with some of the
neurocircuitry and genetic contributors to the experience of physical pain
(Eisenberger et al., 2003); as such, genes in the opioid system are candidates
for contributing to the adverse effects of poor social relationships on health.
Evidence consistent with this hypothesis was obtained in a study of behav-
ioral concomitants of the m-opioid receptor gene (OPMR). Variation in
this gene was associated with reactivity to social rejection in an fMRI study
(Way, Taylor, & Eisenberger, 2009). Another contributor to poor social
relationships is a propensity for aggression and hostility toward others (see
Taylor, 2012, for a review). Accordingly, genetic factors that contribute to
aggression may also represent a useful point of departure. In a recent study,
this intuition was supported. Specifically, Eisenberger, Way, Taylor,
Welch, and Lieberman (2007) found that people with the low-expression
allele of the monoamine oxidase polymorphism (MAOA) showed height-
ened socioemotional sensitivity, making them more sensitive to negative
social experiences and more likely to respond to these experiences with
defensive aggression. Both of these findings suggest that genes involved in
oversensitivity to negative social experiences may contribute to disruptions
in social support or to difficulty in attracting and keeping social support.
Genes related to the oxytocin and vasopressin systems are likely contri-
butors to social affiliation and social distress. For example, deletion of the gene
responsible for making oxytocin prevents mice from developing social mem-
ories (Ferguson et al., 2000), and infant oxytocin knockout mice are deficient
in social behaviors (Winslow et al., 2000). In humans, the oxytocin receptor
gene has been related to social behavior; specifically, carriers of the A allele of
rs53576 of the oxytocin receptor gene are at heightened risk for the develop-
ment of autism (Wu et al., 2005) and, as parents, show less sensitive parenting
toward their young children (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van Ijzendoorn,
2008). A recent investigation also found that variants in the oxytocin receptor
gene are differentially sensitive to culturally appropriate forms of social
support seeking (Kim et al., 2010). Vasopressin (AVP), which is similar in
molecular structure to oxytocin and appears to have a greater impact on male
than female behavior, may also be implicated in social relationships. One
study found that genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1A gene
(AVPR1A) is related to pair-bonding behavior in men (Walum et al.,
2008), and Taylor, Saphire-Bernstein, and Seeman (2010) found that elevated
AVP was associated with distress in romantic relationships among men.
Efforts to explore the genetic underpinnings of psychosocial resources
are in their infancy. The genes referred to by no means exhaust the bases for
exploring genetic contributions to the development of psychosocial

resources or their deployment via coping processes. At present, they repre-
sent promising points of departure with a basis in the existing literature.
Moreover, the existing literature has yet to examine the cumulative impact
of multiple risk-related genes or genegene interactions as potential bases
for the development and deployment of psychosocial resources.
3.1.3. Geneenvironment interactions

The effects of genes related to psychosocial resources are likely to be
moderated by environmental factors. Researchers have long suspected
that a harsh early family environment may contribute to poor psychosocial
resources and to lifespan risk for mental and physical health disorders, not
only directly but also via geneenvironment interactions (Repetti et al.,
2002). The fact that the same family characteristics (a harsh, conflict-ridden
or chaotic early family environment) appear to fuel such a diverse array of
adverse physical and mental health outcomes suggests that a harsh early
family environment may exacerbate preexisting genetically based risks
(Repetti et al., 2002). Animal studies have also suggested the likelihood
that early environment interacts with genetic predispositions to affect
behavioral outcomes. For example, maternal behavior moderates genetic
risk for serotonergic dysfunction related to serotonin transport (Bennett
et al., 2002) and behavioral concomitants of the s allele of the serotonin
transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), specifically impulsivity and social compe-
tence (Suomi, 2003). Animal studies of rat behavior have shown the
importance of nurturant mothering to the development of normal social
behavior (e.g., Francis, Diorio, Liu, & Meaney, 1999; Weaver et al., 2004),
and early nurturant experience appears to moderate the effects of at least one
gene in the dopamine system (DRD4) on social behavior (Bakermans-
Kranenburg & van Ijzendoorn, 2007), in ways that may relate to the
development of psychosocial resources (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van
Ijzendoorn, 2008). Thus, family environment may exert a moderating effect
on genetically based temperamental susceptibilities related to poor psycho-
social resources and their adverse mental health outcomes.
These early environmental contributions need not be immutable, how-
ever. Regulation of genetic expression by the environment can be an ongo-
ing process. Specifically, a recent empirical study (Taylor, Lehman, et al.,
2006) revealed that individuals experiencing a current stressful environment
were significantly more likely to have depressive symptomatology if they had
the s/s genotype of the 5-HTTLPR; however, those with the s/s genotype
were significantly less likely to report depressive symptomatology if they were
currently in a supportive environment. That is, the commonly reported effect
of the s/s genotype of the 5-HTTLPR on risk for depressive symptomatology
was not merely eliminated but actually reversed by a beneficent current
environment. Studies such as these suggest that there may be significant
ongoing environmental regulation of genetic contributions to mental and

physical health outcomes via deployment of psychosocial resources.
Multilevel integrative efforts to relate genetic and/or familial origins of
psychosocial resources and processes to neural mechanisms that link to both
emotional and physiological stress responses are in their infancy. But as these
early studies suggest, such an approach can help to flesh out the pathways
that relate the origins of psychosocial resources to psychological and
biological stress responses. Moreover, mapping such pathways may provide
useful clues for intervention, an issue to which we next turn.
4. Can People be Taught to Develop

Psychosocial Resources?
Much of the preceding review has focused on the dispositional aspects
of psychosocial resources, and even social support, which, on the surface,
would seem to be highly amenable to intervention, has a surprisingly large
dispositional component. Moreover, there are established genetic bases for
psychosocial resources as well. The issue arises, then, as to whether these
psychosocial resources are malleable and responsive to intervention.
Carver et al. (2010) point out that optimistic expectations can be
targeted in cognitive behavioral therapies and may help people develop
more positive future expectations. However, as much of cognitive therapy
is focused on reducing negative perceptions rather than increasing positive
ones, cognitive therapies have not been used to the extent that they could
be to develop positive expectations (Riskind, Sarampote, & Mercier, 1996).
Seligmans concept of learned optimism also suggests that psychological
distress may be alleviated or avoided through multimodal cognitive behav-
ioral procedures that teach people to decrease their negative thoughts and
increase the number of positive ones (e.g., Seligman, Schulman, DeRubeis,
& Hollon, 1999; Seligman, Schulman, & Tryon, 2007). Optimism may also
be a byproduct of other kinds of therapeutic interventions. For example,
when people are trained in stress management techniques, which emphasize
such skills as positive reframing, they appear to become more optimistic
over time (e.g., Antoni et al., 2001).
Principles of mastery and psychological control have also been manipu-
lated in interventions to promote good health habits and to help people
cope with stressful events. For example, a broad literature shows how self-
efficacy and perceived behavioral control influence a wide variety of health
behaviors, including dietary change, exercise, and stopping smoking
(Taylor, 2012, for a review). Principles of mastery and psychological control
have also been extensively used to intervene with people who are anticipat-
ing unpleasant medical procedures, including gastroendoscopic
examinations ( Johnson & Leventhal, 1974), childbirth (Leventhal,

Leventhal, Schacham, & Easterling, 1989), chemotherapy (Burish & Lyles,
1979), and hysterectomies ( Johnson, Christman, & Stitt, 1985), among
many others. A review of a large number of such studies concluded that
control-based interventions that provide information, instruction, relaxa-
tion, and principles of cognitive behavioral change are all successful in
reducing anxiety, improving coping, and enabling people to overcome
adverse effects of medical procedures more quickly (Ludwick-Rosenthal
& Neufeld, 1988). Whether such training generalizes beyond the specific
training circumstances, conferring a general sense of mastery that empowers
people to take control in other life domains, is unknown.
Whether self-esteem can and should be augmented through interven-
tions has been a topic of considerable controversy. Baumeister, Campbell,
Krueger, and Vohs (2003) have argued that interventions often do not
establish the direction of causality, and even when they do, the effect sizes
of self-esteem on beneficial outcomes are small. On the flip side of this
argument, Swann, Schneider, and Larsen McClarty (2007) suggest that
aspects of self-views beyond global self-worth need to be examined, includ-
ing the strength of self-views, their certainty, and other metacognitive
aspects of self-views. Some of the confusion regarding the value of teaching
self-esteem may come from the failure to match specificity between predic-
tor and outcome variables in past research (see Swann et al., 2007 for a
review). Swann and colleagues also note that the small effect sizes noted by
Baumeister et al. (2003) nonetheless concern outcomes whose social impli-
cations are undeniable, including academic performance, marital satisfac-
tion, criminal convictions, and depression. Given the poor quality of life
that people with negative self-views experience (Swann et al., 2007), inter-
ventions to improve self-esteem may help attenuate those destructive
beliefs. However, some of the ambiguity regarding this issue may stem
from the fact that, as resources, self-esteem (and, likely, optimism and
control as well) need to be maintained (Tesser, 1988), but not necessarily
maximized. This means that efforts to build increasing amounts of these
resources, especially in nonclinical populations, may not be especially suc-
cessful: A lot may be good, but even more may not be better.
Many interventions have been implemented with chronically or acutely
ill populations in an effort to enhance coping. Some of these, as noted, are
cognitive behavioral interventions that appear to have the beneficial side
effects of increasing a sense of mastery and optimism and, perhaps, self-
esteem (Antoni et al., 2001). Another type of intervention that may have
similar effects is enabling people to make meaning from a stressful event. In
an intervention with breast and colorectal patients, patients were either
given routine care or guided through a multi-session intervention designed
to induce the making of meaning. Results indicated that the experimental
group showed significantly higher self-esteem, optimism, and self-efficacy,

compared to the control group. Thus, this intervention suggests that the
process of making meaning may evoke psychosocial resources (Lee, Cohen,
Edgar, Laizner, & Gagnon, 2005).
Self-affirmation represents another promising intervention method.
Such exercises have, thus far, been evaluated primarily in short-term cir-
cumstances in laboratory settings (Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000), but
they might well be employed over the longer term as well. Self-affirmation
may mediate the successful impact of interventions designed to encourage
the making of meaning from adverse events and emotional approach coping
as well (Creswell et al., 2007).
Overall, it may be more successful to target coping strategies for inter-
vention than to target dispositional qualities, such as optimism or self-
esteem. As such, coping makes not only a logical and empirically validated
mechanism by which psychosocial resources link to better mental and
physical health outcomes, but also one that prompts the creation of specific
behavioral targets. In addition, the fact that the neural underpinnings of
deployment of psychosocial resources and active coping are increasingly
being identified leads to the possibility of identifying neural signatures
associated with poor psychosocial resources and good psychosocial
resources, as well as an additional type of outcome measure, namely
whether neural signatures change in response to interventions (e.g.,
Paquette et al., 2003). To accomplish all of these goals, there remains a
need for more intervention studies in which people are randomly assigned
to condition to identify whether people can be taught to increase their
psychosocial resources, and then followed over time to see if those psycho-
social resources have causal effects on mental and physical health-related
outcomes.
5. Conclusions and Remaining Issues

A vast amount of literature drawing on many different methods and
expertise from many different fields has firmly established the significance of
psychosocial resources for mental and physical health outcomes. In so
doing, the research literature provides convergence on a multilevel model
that integrates observations from the societal level (e.g., SES) to the molec-
ular level. Figure 1.1 summarizes the model that is supported by this work.
Although a substantial research literature links psychosocial resources to
mental and physical health outcomes, the mediators have remained largely
unknown until recently. In this chapter, we reviewed three potential
mediators, all of which are likely to be implicated in these relations: chronic
negative and positive affect, coping processes including approach versus
avoidant coping, and neural responses to threat in the amygdala, the hypo-
thalamus, the dACC, and the PFC. These brain activations, in turn, regulate
psychological, autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune responses to
threat, which play out over time to affect mental and physical health out-
comes. Research establishes the origins of psychosocial resources in the
early childhood environment, in genetic predispositions, and in their inter-
action. Specifically, low childhood SES and a harsh early family environ-
ment are risk factors for developing inadequate psychosocial resources, and
genetic predispositions and gene-by-environment interactions appear to be
implicated as well. However, although research has definitively established a
role for genetics, the specific genes that are implicated remain to be fully
uncovered. Although not all the links have been made yet, this model is a
scientifically viable account of how psychosocial resources develop and are
deployed over time so as to affect mental and physical health.
Some important issues remain. The best source of evidence for a longi-
tudinal model such as this is large-scale prospective studies that follow a
cohort over time through a range of early childhood experiences and SES
levels with multiple age-appropriate assessments of psychosocial resources,
chronic positive and negative affective states, and approach and avoidance
coping, coupled with assessments of neural regulation of stress responses.
Assessments of markers deemed to be prognostic for chronic mental and
physical health disorders, such as those suggested by the allostatic load
model, would need to be assessed as well, to document changes in mental
and physical health status over time. This is a tall order in its own right, and
it is easier said than done for other reasons. For example, a problem is
presented by analyses that control for baseline mental and physical health,
especially in middle aged and older samples. Specifically, to the extent that
psychosocial resources have already exerted beneficial effects on mental and
physical health, controlling for baseline may actually remove much of the
effects of psychosocial resources (Diener & Chan, 2011; Suls & Bunde,
2005). This problem may be exacerbated by the fact that childhood is a time
when psychosocial resources begin to develop, and so as samples age,
controlling for baseline is increasingly likely to reflect the outcome of
interest.
A related concern may also lead to underestimation of the importance of
psychosocial resources. Much of the literature that has documented the
benefits of psychosocial resources on mental and physical health outcomes
has focused on the management of stressful events, and stressful events are,
by definition, events that occur. Stress that is muted or avoided completely
is not studied. It is likely that psychosocial resources function heavily to
offset threats and enable people to avoid stressors, perhaps as much or more
than to manage them when they occur (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997). Thus, it
is likely that the existing literature underestimates, perhaps substantially, the
benefits of psychosocial resources.
A third factor that may make psychosocial resources more significant for
health-related outcomes than is currently recognized in the literature con-
cerns the likely effects of these resources on appraisal processes and the
ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunities. That is, people
who are optimistic, high in mastery, and high in self-esteem may be able to
see opportunities available to them to advance their personal interests and
goals somewhat more successfully than people who lack these resources.
The world is, of course, filled with hazards as well as opportunities, and
under some conditions, these same resources may lead people into projects
involving unforeseen risks and other liabilities. Nonetheless, an investiga-
tion of the ways in which psychosocial resources may further the seeking
out of opportunities to realize goals represents a way in which the psycho-
social resources literature may draw on the achievement and goal-related
literature for potential insights for future research.
Future research may uncover other benefits of psychosocial resources, as
understanding of the interaction of psychological and biological systems
progresses. For example, intriguing evidence from animal studies suggests
that successful coping with stress may actually stimulate hippocampal neu-
rogenesis (Lyons et al., 2010; Parihar, Hattiangady, Kuruba, Shuai, &
Shetty, 2009). Other evidence suggests the possibility that psychosocial
resources may be reliably related to biological aging, specifically the aging
of the immune system (immunosenesence). For example, in one study
(ODonovan et al., 2009), pessimists had shorter telomeres and higher
IL-6 concentrations than people low in pessimism (although optimism was
not associated with either measure); thus, dispositional pessimism may accel-
erate the rate of biological aging. Whether other resources or lack of them are
related to immunosenesence remains to be seen. Additional research will also
document exactly how psychosocial and biological responses to stress relate to
each other. This review has implicitly suggested that heightened stress
responses are bad, which in normal populations is often true. Yet research
suggests a U-shaped function, such that in some clinical populations, unre-
sponsivity of the HPA axis (i.e., hypocortisolism) is a significant adverse
biological characteristic, such as patients with PTSD (Lupien, McEwen,
Gunnar, & Heim, 2009). The capacity of profound threats and/or accumu-
lating damage to compromise biological stress regulatory systems to the point
of nonresponsivity must be acknowledged as well.
There are likely to be important cultural differences both in what
constitutes a culturally appropriate resource and in how that resource is
deployed. For example, East Asians may rely less on individual resources
than European/Americans, such as optimism, control, and self-esteem (e.g.,
Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999), and when they do, experi-
ence them differently (e.g., Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982; Yik, Bond,
& Paulhus, 1998). By contrast, East Asians may rely more on social resources
such as the social group for managing their stressors; yet, rather than
drawing on others for explicit support, that support may be experienced

more implicitly (Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2009). Other cultural differences
are likely to be uncovered as well.
As noted, another issue that the psychosocial resource literature high-
lights concerns the continuities between coping with stress and goal-
directed behavior. Typically, these issues are studied by different groups of
researchers addressing different outcomes, with stress researchers focusing
on mental and physical health-related outcomes and achievement-oriented
researchers focusing on achievement behavior, such as goal-setting and
performance. However, the distinction between dispositional and situa-
tional assessments of psychosocial resources, and the fact that they parallel
these different outcomes, reveals the continuity between coping with stress
and goal-oriented behavior. That is, both successful coping with stress and
successful progress toward a goal depend critically on active coping and the
absence of avoidant coping. Bringing these two literatures together may
further clarify their similarities and provide useful insights. For example, the
coping literature clearly shows the importance of emotional approach
coping (Stanton et al., 2009), yet the achievement literature has focused
more on motivation than on other emotional states. The stress and coping
literature has also focused heavily on biological effects of stress on the
autonomic, endocrine, and immune systems, and such a focus may provide
insights as to the neural and neuroendocrine concomitants of achievement-
oriented behavior under both challenging and threatening circumstances
(Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey, & Leitten, 1993). Of interest, there is an
inverted U-shape relation between glucocorticoid levels and cognitive
performance (Lupien & McEwen, 1997), suggesting that the HPA axis
may map onto the often-reported U-shaped relation between anxiety and
performance.
Another remaining issue concerns whether unrealistic levels of psycho-
social resources are adaptive or not. Although this issue surfaced at several
points in the preceding discussion, it is not a focal issue of this review and,
thus, cannot be definitively addressed in these conclusions. On the whole, it
appears that feelings of mastery and optimism, even when they are some-
what exaggerated in a positive direction, can be adaptive. Self-views that are
falsely positive (i.e., self-enhancement) appear to have benefits in some
circumstances but may compromise social functioning at the extremes or
over time (e.g., Robins & Beer, 2001). Whether exaggerating the degree of
social support one perceives to have available has liabilities is unknown but,
on the whole, the evidence suggests that perceived social support has strong
mental and physical health benefits. The question of the adaptiveness of
unrealistic psychosocial resources is, however, a complex issue and merits
more than the cursory overview provided here.
What is important to recognize, however, is the fact that psychosocial
resources do not appear to uniformly undermine the ability to recognize
personally relevant risks. The evidence for this point is quite strong in the
optimism literature and also has some support in the self resources literature.
Of note, there is preliminary neural evidence for such a conclusion, as well.
That is, a study that directly addressed this issue (Taylor et al., 2008) found
that people with high psychosocial resources did not show lower activation
of brain regions implicated in threat perceptions but, rather, showed greater
activation in regions associated with executive control of those threat
responses. This pattern suggests that psychosocial resources confer coping
ability at the executive level, rather than undermining the recognition of
threats or risk.
Given that psychosocial resources appear to have a profound effect on
mental and physical health, the question arises as to how modifiable they
are. The fact that they have origins in early childhood and genetic factors
might suggest cause for pessimism, but as our review of the intervention
literature suggests, these resources can be enhanced. Intervening to help
people think more positively about themselves, the world, and the future is
one method, and cognitive behavioral interventions more generally appear
to affect psychosocial resources for the better. Because psychosocial
resources appear to exert so many of their effects through specific
approach-oriented coping techniques, these coping techniques themselves
represent potential points of intervention. This is an especially valuable
focus because coping subsumes the ways that people think and behave in
response to stress and, thus, is potentially more modifiable than dispositional
resources themselves. Evidence suggests that coping interventions do,
indeed, enable people to manage their lives and cope with stress and may
feed back into the development of enhanced psychosocial resources (e.g.,
Antoni et al., 2001; Lee et al., 2005). As such, interventions such as these
may ultimately affect mental and physical health beneficially.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Preparation of this chapter was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging
(AG030309).
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C H A P T E R O N E

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 44 # 2011 Elsevier Inc.

psychological, autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune responses, the likely

Personality and social psychologists have long studied individual dif-

1. Psychological and Social Resources:

Early environment Genetic predispositions

Mental and physical

Figure 1.1 A model of the development and deployment of psychosocial resources.

generalized favorable expectations across a broad array of outcomes. Situa-

1.1.1. Dispositional optimism

optimism as a pervasive individual difference and includes such items as In

stronger sense of personal control (Ruthig & Chipperfield, 2006), a more

1.1.2. Situational optimism

A second concern has centered on whether optimism blinds people to

be objectively measured (Armor & Taylor, 1998). Moreover, although

1.2. Mastery/psychological control

physiological and psychological stress responses and to better mood

aversive when it gives people more responsibility than they want

1.3. Self-related resources

depression or SES. Thus, low self-esteem appears to be a risk factor for

1.3.2. Ego strength

1.4. Other individual difference psychosocial resources

1.4.3. Other potential resources

1.5. Social relationships and social support

Social relationships and a common consequence, namely social support,

1.6. Psychosocial resources as a composite variable

2. Mediators Linking Psychosocial Resources

responses to stress. These are not mutually exclusive mechanisms, of course,

2.1. Negative and positive affect

rather, perceptions of control appear to play a causal role in reducing anxiety

and to better health outcomes. In particular, positive reappraisal of stressors,

detection, serving an alarm function that mobilizes other neural regions,

by means of regulating threat responses, and not by decreased sensitivity to

may be implicated in mental representations generated with respect to

mechanisms underlying the deployment of psychosocial resources for man-

2.4. Biological mediators

for illness can be laid. Excessive discharge of epinephrine and norepineph-

3. Origins of Psychosocial Resources

3.1. Early environment

health disorders, including elevated autonomic and cortisol responses to

3.1.1. Socioeconomic status

Kubzansky, Capitman, & Goodman, 2007; Gallo, de los Monteros, &

3.1.2. Genetic origins of psychosocial resources

Using twin study methodology, behavioral genetics investigations have

sociability and lower level of anxiety-related traits (Golimbet, Alfimova, &

exploring genetic contributions to the development of psychosocial

3.1.3. Geneenvironment interactions

ongoing environmental regulation of genetic contributions to mental and

4. Can People be Taught to Develop

examinations ( Johnson & Leventhal, 1974), childbirth (Leventhal,

group showed significantly higher self-esteem, optimism, and self-efficacy,

5. Conclusions and Remaining Issues

drawing on others for explicit support, that support may be experienced

Berridge, C. W., & Waterhouse, B. D. (2003). The locus coeruleus-noradrenergic system:

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