The Stress and Health Lab
Dr. Jennifer Graham
Our Research Mission:
The mission of the Stress and Health Lab at Penn State University is to examine the effects of psychological stress and stress responses on physical health. With regard to stress responses our emphasis is on emotional responses (such as anger), and cognitive factors (such as making meaning from difficult experiences). In terms of physical health, our emphasis is on immune function (psychoneuroimmunology, or PNI) and chronic pain, including the interaction between pain and inflammation. Pain is one of the most prevalent yet under-treated problems facing Americans today and the long-term goal of our research is to provide a better understanding of the many influences on chronic pain and to develop novel and inexpensive supplemental therapeutic approaches for pain.
In all of our work, we seek to apply psychological theory within a broad biobehavioral health framework which takes into consideration the relevance of situational and cultural factors, health behavior, and individual differences such as personality traits, age, and gender. Both aging and gender are significant focal points of our work. Gender stereotypes and culturally-driven gender differences in pain experience, reporting of medical problems, and anger may result in discrepancies in medical diagnosis and treatment. With regard to aging, there appear to be interactive effects of age and stress on immune health that put older adults at a disadvantage. These issues have not been explored sufficiently within the area of chronic pain or stress and immune-related health more generally.
Students and postdocs in this laboratory will gain broad training in PNI and biobehavioral health research, experience working with patients and members of the community, and extensive training in research methods and statistics. In the near future we will be examining the effects of expressing anger and other types of emotion on pain and depression, with the expectation that the cognitive work of making meaning from difficult experiences will be key to benefits of focusing on negative emotion. We will also be examining the consequences of communicating pain perception to close others.