Does Unhappiness Make You Sick? The Role of Affect and Neuroticism in the Experience of Common Physical Symptoms

The relative strength of both affective state and the personality trait neuroticism in predicting common physical symptoms was tested. The authors used an event-sampling design to overcome methodological limitations of past research in the area. Contrary to much previous research, neuroticism was found to be unrelated to reports of physical symptoms, although it was found to be related to unpleasant affective state. Unpleasant affect bore a strong concurrent relation to the frequency of reported symptoms. Temporal relations between experiences of unpleasant affect and subsequent symptoms were found for some individuals, but wide individual variability was seen in both the strength and direction of this linkage. The findings suggest that when individuals are asked to report their subjective experiences of physical illness without the necessity to retrospect over significant periods of time, unpleasant affective state is more strongly related to experiences of symptoms than is the trait neuroticism.