{"doi":"10.17615/4pkj-g083","title":"Psychological Well-Being and the Human Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity","abstract":"Research in human social genomics has identified a conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) characterized by up-regulated expression of pro-inflammatory genes and down-regulated expression of Type I interferon- and antibody-related genes. This report seeks to identify the specific aspects of positive psychological well-being that oppose such effects and predict reduced CTRA gene expression. In a new confirmation study of 122 healthy adults that replicated the approach of a previously reported discovery study, mixed effect linear model analyses identified a significant inverse association between expression of CTRA indicator genes and a summary measure of eudaimonic well-being from the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form. Analyses of a 2- representation of eudaimonia converged in finding correlated psychological and social subdomains of eudaimonic well-being to be the primary carriers of CTRA associations. Hedonic well-being showed no consistent CTRA association independent of eudaimonic well-being, and summary measures integrating hedonic and eudaimonic well-being showed less stable CTRA associations than did focal measures of eudaimonia (psychological and social well-being). Similar results emerged from analyses of pooled discovery and confirmation samples (n = 198). Similar results also emerged from analyses of a second new generalization study of 107 healthy adults that included the more detailed Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being and found this more robust measure of eudaimonic well-being to also associate with reduced CTRA gene expression. Five of the 6 major sub-domains of psychological well-being predicted reduced CTRA gene expression when analyzed separately, and 3 remained distinctively prognostic in mutually adjusted analyses. All associations were independent of demographic characteristics, health-related confounders, and RNA indicators of leukocyte subset distribution. These results identify specific sub-dimensions of eudaimonic well-being as promising targets for future interventions to mitigate CTRA gene expression, and provide no support for any independent favorable contribution from hedonic well-being.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":136059,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9631,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":593659,"name":"Ann M. Firestine","orcid":"0000-0001-9734-9687","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":335231,"name":"Steve W. Cole","orcid":"0000-0002-7168-8039","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":593660,"name":"Jesusa M.G. Arevalo","orcid":"0000-0001-9659-7881","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":512318,"name":"Sara B. Algoe","orcid":"0000-0002-1273-2968","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":350074,"name":"Jeffrey Ma","orcid":"0000-0002-3646-3547","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":58159,"name":"Barbara L. Fredrickson","orcid":"0000-0002-3890-2646","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311896,"name":"Karen Grewen","orcid":"0000-0003-2588-6568","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:16:35.237665Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}