Steptoe applies a methodology which he perfected studying the positive psychobiological effects of a good cuppa to show that positive emotion, like tea, has many positive effects and can guard against stress. This study uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) whereby mood is assessed using rating scales at four periods throughout the day. They also use a stress test to evaluate cardiovascular reactivity and then relate this to affect throughout the day. Having a high level of positive affect througout the day means that you have lower levels of systolic BP at rest and after the stress task and also quicker diastolic BP recovery. Interestingly, having low positive affect was predictive of a greater cortisol response and this effect was independent of negative affect. Those who were high in positive affect did not differ from those low on positive affect in terms of negative affect indicating that they are separable concepts rather than existing on a continuum from negative to positive. Positive emotion aslo has independent effects indicated that merely focusing on removing ill-being is not enough.
This article pre-empts what will be quite a significant piece of work when the bloods from this study come back to show relationships between daily mood and a variety of measures of immune function, inflammation, and neuroendocrine function. They did not, however, include cardiovascular measures across the day. Steptoe seems to prefer to examine stress in the laboratory and relate this to daily affect. Coupling both methodologies would be worthwhile. The DRM may offer advantages over EMA and incorporating both into a study and seeing their level of similarity may be worthwhile.
Overall, demonstrating a protective effect of positive emotion on biological stress hormones which is independent of age, BMI, or importantly negative affect is a valuable finding which needs to be replicated in a larger sample.
Neuroendocrine and cardiovascular correlates of
positive affect measured by ecological momentary
assessment and by questionnaire
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