READING 19

Sociability and Susceptibility to the Common Cold by Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, & Skoner (2003)

Please refer to the printed reader, Readings in Social Psychology 4/e, for the text of this article.

Overview

What determines your susceptibility to the common cold virus? Lately, there has been much research into the role that social relationships play in predicting people’s health. However, according to researchers Cohen, Doyle, Turner, Alper, and Skoner, it is not social relationships, per se, that need to be examined, but, rather, the personality traits that facilitate social interactions. Specifically, their study demonstrated that sociable people are less likely than unsociable people to catch a cold when exposed to a rhinovirus. The researchers defined “sociable” to mean people who seek others and are agreeable. They rated participants’ sociability levels and then exposed them to the virus and proceeded to objectively and subjectively measure their rates of infection. They found that the higher their sociability score, the less likely people were to develop a cold. As for how sociability might be related to resistance to colds, the researchers propose that sociability is genetically determined and that those same genes might be contributing to biological processes that play a role in the body’s ability to fight infection. See Chapter 14 (Health) of the text for other aspects of personality that have been found to influence health.

Critical Thinking Questions

  1. The study found that low levels of sociability produced a greater risk for infection for females rather than males when the subjective definition of illness was used. Why might that be?
  2. How could people’s subjective reports of their sociability predict their ability to withstand infection when the actual amount of time they interacted with others did not?
  3. The researchers report that extraversion is associated with reduced susceptibility to infection. In light of the fact that extraverted individuals are exposed to more germs, how is that possible?
  4. What does this study imply about what the average person can do to avoid frequent colds?
  5. According to the authors, second-degree relatives of shy children are more prone to hay fever than relatives of sociable children. Why is this fact relevant to this study?
  6. How do the researchers define sociability? Do you agree with the definition? Is there an additional trait you would include or one you would exclude?

Links for Further Investigation

This MSNBC article discusses an earlier study by Cohen that showed that happy, calm, or lively people are less likely to catch colds than people with negative emotions. See the article at:

An article listing all personality traits that have been found to have negative or positive effect on health can be viewed at:

Not only does a person’s own personality traits affect his or her health, one study found that the spouse’s personality does too in the case of patients recovering from heart surgery. An article discussing the study can be read at: