Thesis
The neuroendocrine reactivity to social defeat : threat/challenge appraisals and socio-economic status
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2023
- Thesis identifier
- T16747
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201894435
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Extensive evidence demonstrates that lower socio-economic status (SES) is associatedwith poorer health and reduced opportunities to fully participate in society. Reasonsfor this exist within a latticework of socio-cultural, economic, political, and biologicalinfluences, in concert with psychological processes. The social gradient in healthrobustly illustrates how inequalities and social rank predict distribution of disease.Marmot (2004) argues that where people stand in relation to others in society iscrucial for an individual’s health and well-being. Similarly, Wilkinson and Pickett(2018) suggest the social gradient in health results from social rank and relativeposition on the social ladder, with subordination linked to limited resources and lackof control, rather than from health behaviours or access to medical care. However,neither of those theoretical positions empirically test specific biopsychosocialmechanisms through which status affects health. By exploring endocrine reactivity inresponse to an experimental social defeat task, cognitive moderators of this link, andthe relationships of key psychosocial factors to endocrine reactivity and therebyhealth, this thesis advances research of health inequalities. It does so by providinginsight into the concrete neuroendocrine mechanisms underpinning the socialgradient in health. Although this study does not provide any firm, definitiveconclusions about differences in endocrine reactivity and cognitive appraisals of thetask between SES groups, it suggests that androgenic and glucocorticoid systemsmight indeed be involved in the social gradient of health. However, future researchexploring those relationships on a larger scale is required. The results furtherdemonstrate that the overall circulating T levels were higher in the high SES comparedto low SES group in both competition conditions. Participants also display higheroverall levels of circulating C levels on the day of the experiment compared to thebaseline day. Moreover, the thesis suggests that testosterone (T) potentially plays animportant role in the underpinning neuroendocrine reactivity that affects behaviouralimplications of social defeat/victory, before situating these within the broadercontextual framework of socio-economic disadvantage (SED). Accordingly, whilst therelationship between T reactivity and motivational states was not found to bestatistically significant, this thesis argues that public and health policy interventionsshould take cognisance of the behavioural and biological implications of social defeatwithin lower SES groups. Doing so can aid in the minimisation of those consequences,and harvest positive health and behavioural outcomes which in turn respond to healthinequality.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Greener, Ian
- Henderson, Marion
- Burns, Harry
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2023
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