Psychological Stress and the Our Immune System

A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry
Suzanne C. Segerstrom University of Kentucky
Gregory E. Miller University of British Columbia

The present report meta-analyzes more than 300 empirical articles describing a relationship between psychological stress and parameters of the immune system in human participants. Acute stressors (lasting minutes) were associated with potentially adaptive upregulation of some parameters of natural immunity and downregulation of some functions of specific immunity. Brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral measures. Effects of event sequences varied according to the kind of event (trauma vs. loss). Subjective reports of stress generally did not associate with immune change. In some cases, physical vulnerability as a function of age or disease also increased vulnerability to immune change during stressors.

Despite nearly a century of research on various aspects of stress, investigators still find it difficult to achieve consensus on a satisfactory definition of this concept. Most of the studies contributing to this review simply define stress as circumstances that most people would find stressful, that is, stressors. We adopted Elliot and Eisdorfer’s (1982) taxonomy to characterize these stressors. This taxonomy has the advantage of distinguishing among stressors on two important dimensions: duration and course (e.g., discrete vs. continuous). The taxonomy includes five categories of stressors.
Acute time-limited stressors involve laboratory challenges such as public speaking or mental arithmetic. Brief naturalistic stressors, such as academic examinations, involve a person confronting a real-life short-term challenge. In stressful event sequences, a focal event, such as the loss of a spouse or a major natural disaster, gives rise to a series of related challenges. Although affected individuals usually do not know exactly when these challenges will subside,
they have a clear sense that at some point in the future they will.
Chronic stressors, unlike the other demands we have described, usually pervade a person’s life, forcing him or her to restructure his or her identity or social roles.

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