Within-Person Covariation between Mood and Biochemicals

摘要

A presumed covariation of mood and biochemicals is important in models of stress and emotion. A within-person approach should yield a sensitive test of this hypothesis, but prior studies of routine life situations had shown only modest associations. The present study applied the within-person approach to 34 men with variation in stress known to be sufficient to change mood and biochemical variables. Average within-person correlations were strong for moods and small, but frequently significant, for biochemical variables and mood-biochemical pairs. Significant inter-individual differences in the correlations were present for moods and possibly for mood-biochemical pairs. These results were consistent with current theories of emotion given peripheral biochemical measures. The cumulative effects of the mood-biochemical associations may be significant for behavior and health, because moods were related to a number of relatively independent biochemical parameters. Because important inter-individual differences in within-person correlations are still a possibility, the hypothesis of strong mood-biochemical variable covariation may apply to some people.