Highs \(\it and\) lows
- Why people differ in their susceptibility to external events is essential to our understanding of personality, human development, and mental disorders. Genes explain a substantial portion of these differences. Specifically, genes influencing the serotonin system are hypothesized to be \(\textit {differential susceptibility}\) factors, determining a person's reactivity to both positive \(\it and\) negative environments. We tested whether genetic variation in the serotonin transporter \(\textit {(5-HTTLPR)}\) is a differential susceptibility factor for daily events. Participants (\(\it N\) = 326, 77% female, mean age = 25, range = 17–36) completed smartphone questionnaires four times a day over four to five days, measuring stressors, uplifts, positive and negative affect. Affect was predicted from environment valence in the previous hour on a within-person level using three-level autoregressive linear mixed models. The \(\textit {5-HTTLPR}\) fulfilled all criteria of a differential susceptibility factor: Positive affect in carriers of the short allele (S) was less reactive to both uplifts and stressors, compared to homozygous carriers of the long allele (L/L). This pattern might reflect relative affective inflexibility in S-allele carriers. Our study provides insight into the serotonin system’s general role in susceptibility and highlights the need to assess the whole spectrum of naturalistic experiences.
Author: | Maurizio Leonardo SicorelloORCiDGND, Linda DieckmannGND, Dirk MoserORCiDGND, Vanessa LuxGND, Maike LuhmannORCiDGND, Andreas B. NeubauerORCiDGND, Wolff SchlotzGND, Robert KumstaORCiDGND |
---|---|
URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-76879 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237001 |
Parent Title (English): | PLoS ONE |
Subtitle (English): | genetic susceptibility to daily events |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Place of publication: | San Francisco |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2020/11/30 |
Date of first Publication: | 2020/08/13 |
Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
Tag: | Open Access Fonds |
Volume: | 15 |
Issue: | 8, Article e0237001 |
First Page: | e0237001-1 |
Last Page: | e0237001-17 |
Note: | Article Processing Charge funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. |
Institutes/Facilities: | Lehrstuhl Psychologische Methodenlehre |
Research Department of Neuroscience | |
Fakultät für Psychologie, Lehrstuhl für Genetische Psychologie | |
open_access (DINI-Set): | open_access |
faculties: | Fakultät für Psychologie |
Licence (English): | Creative Commons - CC BY 4.0 - Attribution 4.0 International |