Abstract
Position in the social hierarchy is a major determinant of health outcomes. We examined the associations between aspects of social hierarchy and depressive symptoms with a specific focus on one potential psychological mechanism: emotion suppression. Suppressing negative emotion has mental health costs, but individuals with low social power and low social status may use these strategies to avoid conflict. Study 1 assessed perceived social power, tendency to suppress negative emotion, and depressive symptoms in a community sample of women. Low social power was related to greater depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by emotion suppression. Study 2 examined education as a proxy for social hierarchy position, anger suppression, and depressive symptoms in a national, longitudinal cohort study (The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults [CARDIA] study; Cutter etal., 1991). Much as in Study 1, low education levels were correlated with greater depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by anger suppression. Further, suppression mediated the relationship between low education and subsequent depression up to 15 years later. These findings support the theory that social hierarchy affects mental health in part through a process of emotion suppression.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 417-436 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied |
| Volume | 146 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 1 2012 |
Funding
The authors thank the UCSF Health Psychology postdoctoral research group for their feedback on this research. C.L. was supported by an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (T32 MH019391-15) at UCSF and an NIH Loan Repayment Program award (1 L60 MD002064-01). E.E. was supported by an NIMH K08 award (MH64110-01A1). The authors also thank the Oakland Children’s Hospital-UCSF PCRC NIH MO1 RR01271. The work on the second study in this manuscript was partially supported by contracts: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Coordinating Center, N01-HC-95095; University of Alabama at Birmingham, Field Center, N01-HC-48047; University of Minnesota, Field Center and Diet Reading Center (Year 20 Exam), N01-HC-48048; Northwestern University, Field Center, N01-HC-48049; Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, N01-HC-48050; University of California, Irvine, Echocardiography Reading Center (Year 5 & 10), N01-HC-45134; Harbor-UCLA Research Education Institute, Computed Tomography Reading Center (Year 15 Exam), N01-HC-05187; Wake Forest University (Year 20 Exam), N01-HC-45205; New England Medical Center (Year 20 Exam), N01-HC-45204 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous)
- General Psychology