FEST Writing Group

Stress and Social Position

Laurie Lassiter

 

Thesis: Murray Bowen’s theory of emotional process and its unequal distribution of stress can be applied to social groups in general, from the intimacy of family to the increasing complexity of society.  Recent research provides some new twists in the epigenetics of social stress and its effects.

 

The Dominant Stressor in Primates

 

Robert Sapolsky is perhaps the most eloquent spokesperson for the belief that the dominant stressors in our lives are the social environments in which we live. He posits in Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers that the powerful stress reactions we evolved in order to streamline our escape from dangerous predators—energizing our entire system, mobilizing our muscles, interrupting our digestion, and putting reproduction and immune functioning on hold—are now triggered mostly by other people. He has observed that social stress is characteristic of interactions in primate societies in general; the human is no exception and may indeed provide a paramount case (Sapolsky 2005).

 

Primate societies, with complex social and dominance hierarchies, pose a greater stress on individuals than the stresses of the physical environment.  One’s position in the group has adrenocortical, cardiovascular, reproductive, immunological, and neurobiological consequences (Sapolsky 2005).  And these consequences apply to the human as a preeminent social species with powerful, complex, and nuanced social hierarchies.

 

Large predators and accidental falls were not the only cause of traumatic injury during early human evolution.  From the beginning of our evolutionary history, harm was inflicted at the hands of other people, whether from a warring tribe or from unresolved conflict within a tribe. Adaptation to the threat of conflict, social rejection, and isolation shaped the evolution of Homo sapiens. Through natural selection, adaptations to the emerging, complex, and radically changing social environment led to the appearance of a new, more social hominid, the modern human.

 

All life forms have a stress response to threats in the environment, in order to support survival. For modern humans fortunate enough to live in circumstances where mastery of the physical environment of predators and food-and-water scarcity is possible, the social environment of family, friends, work associates, and community members stimulates the stress response most often.  Those not at risk for life-threatening wounds from war and other strife are still vulnerable to the effects of chronic social stress, which can lead to life-threatening chronic illness.

 

There is probably a sweet spot in having a measure of stressful social experiences.  Chronically stressful social experiences can lead to overwhelming behavioral, cognitive, physiological, and neural changes, each interacting with and affecting the others, leading to symptoms including disease, addiction, and mental health issues. At the same time, engaging with stressful experiences, rather than avoiding them, can lead to increased growth, learning, and adaptation (McEwen 2010). McEwen points out that chronic dysregulation of stress reactivity can be an over‐activity or inactivity of the stress response.  Optimal health requires consistent exercise of the physiological systems involved in the stress response and adaptation to environmental change, rather than no stress at all. Bowen quipped that with too little stress reactivity, one might dribble right off the court.

 

The Excluded

 

Murray Bowen observed that all social systems—whether a family, work association, community organization, religious congregation, or friendship network—show predictable patterns of interactions that emerge at the level of the group.  These automatic patterns of interactions have multiple functions, a significant one of which is to distribute the stress within the group unequally.  Bowen observed that the family functions emotionally, and even instinctively, as a single unit.  He speculated that the family, the human’s primary social group, evolved to maximize the likelihood of survival and reproduction of the group, even at the expense of certain individuals.  Individuals who are exploited by the relationship system—for instance a child used for emotional support by one parent against the other; an employee consistently blamed for agency-wide problems; a member of a religious minority scapegoated by a society with economic troubles—may have difficulties in functioning that have more to do with the system than with who they are as individuals. We see the difficulties at the level of the individual, missing how the group relationship process is contributing to them.

 

Sensitivity to social threat includes fear of being put down, or diminished, by others. It is common, Bowen observed, for people, especially under conditions of stress, to blame, subtly exclude, or to reject a vulnerable person in the group outright. Bowen saw the emotional process of excluding others broadly: as in any way viewing others as weak or having something wrong about them. People may seek to exclude, or put others down, in subtle and covert ways, while seeking to maintain an image of being compassionate. An example is worrying or gossiping about another’s health or wellbeing, or expressing concern that so-and-so “is not making good choices,” all of which casts the other into a weak position.

 

The threat of harm registers in the nervous system of the singled-out member, triggering complex physiological and behavioral processes designed to avert injury. Bruce McEwen has described how social stress registers in the brain, the key organ of stress reactivity, triggering neuronal, endocrine, immunity and behavioral responses to cope with the stressful social condition and to recover from the upset. There are stressful processes that are built into the social environment, including the threat of rejection or disapproval. Corresponding processes are embodied within the brain, especially within the limbic system, that respond with stress reactivity to adverse social events (McEwen 2010).

 

Bowen observed that stress within any relationship system is distributed to some more than others. Some individuals are excluded—blamed, rejected, pitied, worried about, or viewed as the problem that is bringing everyone else down.  Bowen observed that the excluded person tends to absorb more of the stress of the system, freeing up the others to be less stressed.  As an analogy, if a tree or houseplant does not receive needed water, a few leaves begin to wither and turn brown; the plant distributes the effects of the stress of desiccation unequally, and perhaps the plant as a whole is more likely to survive.  The relationship dance of being one-up or one-down refers to absorbing the stress (one-down) in the relationship or larger group or being relatively free of its stress (one-up) at another’s expense. Bowen’s concept of the triangle describes how alliances with others within the family or other social system function to shift stress. Teaming up with others makes it easier to exclude a susceptible individual, pushing him or her into a weak, one-down position.  The triangle in its simplest form is a two-against-one process in which two team up (as in the term “double-teaming”) to exclude another. Group-initiated exclusion, through gossip, for example, creates a more-than-two-against-one phenomenon.

 

The Triangle

 

Bowen described how all families and other social groups are made up of interlocking triangles, fueled by emotional reactions within each individual to gain approval and acceptance, often by pushing someone else out.  A triangle, in its basic form, is made up of two inside positions, associated with comfort and approval, and one outside position—associated with being excluded or blamed.  The one in the outside position will attempt an alliance with one of the other two and to push out that one’s alliance partner.  In this way, the alliances are continually shifting, and each person in the triangle plays a part, automatically moved by emotional forces of which they are unaware. It is human nature for people to attempt to gain an inside position while pushing out a third person.  Especially when under stress, when things have gone wrong, a family or other social group will tend to exclude one member, blaming that one or in another way seeing that individual as the family or group problem. Current research is identifying some of the mechanisms of how social stress experienced in a family or other social group regulates individual genetic expression, along with physical and mental health. QUESTION SENTENCE

 

People may form alliances, joining with others to take a one-up position in relation to others who are left out. Examples are an in-group in town government, the popular kids in high school, a gang beating out a rival gang, liberals looking down on members of the working class as unenlightened, an ethnic majority assuming superiority over a minority. The basic dynamic is to exclude others who are designated one-down. Bowen believed this fundamental, instinctive tendency exists in all people, varying only in degree.  The tendency can be very overt or very subtle—and difficult to see—but it is there in all of us.

 

The instinctive tendency for a family or other social group to blame or look down on one or more of its individual members can be extrapolated to larger social issues of inequality.  The same instinctive tendency to exploit a part of one’s family may be at play in the exploitation of an ethnic minority or economically-limited group. Bowen believed that even with the diffuse influences in a larger society, the emotional process toward exploiting some is still present, like water seeking its own level.

 

Socioeconomic Status

 

Health, illness, and longevity conform to a socioeconomic gradient, or class rank, based on income, occupation, and level of education. In general, the higher the socioeconomic status (SES), the better the health outcome. The gradient effect cannot be explained entirely by differences in food quality, neighborhood safety, transportation, and health care. People view themselves in a ranked relationship to others, perceiving how they are valued in their family or social group. Since socially stressful experiences inherent to socioeconomic position occur at the familial and community level as well as at the individual level, people may also be sensitive to how their family or group is viewed.

It is unknown how much the stress of low SES is related to financial hardship versus the potentially chronic stressful feelings of not being good enough and being marginalized and socially excluded.  An individual’s perception of his or her relative standing or rank in a social hierarchy, recently termed subjective social status, may affect the person’s emotional, behavioral, and physiological stress response and resilience.  Feeling demoralized and hopeless in the face of insurmountable challenges, or feeling driven to gain economic and social status that is always beyond reach, may, even in situations in which gains in SES occur, lead to behavioral, emotional, and physiological reactivity to social stress that results in ill health.

 

Increasing evidence links socioeconomic status (SES) to health through stress-related processes.  Bruce McEwen cites animal and clinical (human) studies that show the impact of low status on health and wellbeing throughout the lifespan, and he links low SES to greater social stress.  He is one of the researchers who has questioned how much the demands of the physical environment, including lack of financial resources, may be secondary to the demoralization of being at a lower station in life.  Social exclusion and marginalization may be the greater problem, he says, since these social stressors affect one’s view of self. According to McEwen, “subjective social status”—a person’s sense of relative standing or rank in social hierarchy, and sense of value as a social being—is often directly related to SES, and a primary determinant of individual stress levels. (McEwen 2010).

 

Based on animal studies that show that the stress of social isolation and social threat increase the incidence of tumors, Martha McClintock began to wonder if cancer arises more often in people who experience social isolation.   Observing an increased cancer risk in African Americans over Caucasians, she asked whether the increased cancer incidence could be related to the increased stress of social isolation and social threat created by racial discrimination. She compares African Americans with Hispanics, finding that Hispanics in the U.S. facing the same socioeconomic stresses have better health, and those of low socioeconomic status nonetheless live longer than either White or Black populations. Perhaps the “Hispanic paradox” (in the language of government reports) results from the close-knit extended family and social structures with religious or spiritual values known to be common in Hispanic communities. Similarly, African American communities where social supports include strong church attendance, are also associated with lower mortality from cancer. The key factor in the association of poorer health outcomes with lower socioeconomic level may well not be the existenceof burdens, threats, and stressors present in the environment, but rather their weight in relation to available social supports (Waite, 2005).

How much does a sense of self depend on the quality of relationships with others?  How much are people of a lower SES level stressed because of lack of money and opportunity, and how much from being in a one-down position?

The Whitehall studies indicate that being in a lower status job compared to others leads to increased illness and mortality, even when a person makes a good living and has a profession like physician that in another context would be admired. An analysis of the hierarchy of the British service found an inverse association between employment grade and prevalence of angina, evidence of ischemia, and symptoms of chronic bronchitis. Self-perceived health status was also worse in subjects in lower status jobs.

A prominent feature of health in all industrialized countries is the social gradient in health and disease. Many observers believe that this gradient is simply a matter of poor health for the disadvantaged and good health for everyone else, but this analysis is inadequate. The Whitehall Study WHEN WERE THE STUDIES? documented a social gradient in mortality rates, even among people who are not poor, and this pattern has been confirmed by data from the United States and elsewhere. The social gradient in health is influenced by such factors as social position; relative versus absolute deprivation; and control and social participation. (Marmot 2003). Interestingly, one individual noted in the Whitehall studies by Robert Sapolsky in the film Stress: The Silent Killer who maintained good health despite his lower-graded position was a popular star player on a community baseball team.

The determining factor of the relationship of SES to health and longevity may be the opportunities that higher SES provides for increased social integration.  Perhaps it is social connection, rather than SES per se, that is more important in health outcomes (Berkman 1979).

Social integration

Multiple aspects of being social have been linked to longevity and health. These include size of social network, including number of friends and acquaintances, as well as informal connections; social support including emotional support, information, and financial support as needed; frequency of social interaction; quality of interpersonal interactions; loneliness which may occur independent of amount of time alone; and isolation. Each aspect may have differential beneficial effects. (Berkman 2000) (Cohen 2004).

 

One dimension of social relationships that has been most consistently linked to longevity and health is social integration. It refers to a comprehensive approach that includes multiple positive aspects of social relationships, including support, network size, and quality of interactions. What sets social integration apart is its inclusion of many social benefits. In addition, it refers to a couple of unique characteristics that the other beneficial aspects do not necessarily include. Individuals who are high in social integration are motivated to deliberately enlarge their learning opportunities and activities that lead to a wider and wider range of social relationships. Beyond being open to developing diverse social roles, they hold a cognitive assessment of the importance of their roles. They value being responsible participants in their various communal presences (Brissette 2000). Epidemiological studies have specifically linked measures of social integration with lifespan, degree of cognitive aging and risk for dementia, severity of cardiovascular disease, risk for stroke, and the recurrence of cancer.

 

Perhaps social integration has an additional, important function: protection from the negative effects of being rejected, left out, blamed, criticized, or looked down on within any one group. By participating in multiple social relationships, an individual is less vulnerable to the emotional process of a particular group. Dependency on one relationship or group may be lessened by having multiple opportunities for approval and appreciation.  Facing rejection or conflict in one arena may be relieved when one is welcomed in another setting, separate from the first.

(The literature on resilient children describes how children who live in families with significant problems in functioning can gain from forming a relationship with an adult outside the family.)

Toward a Systems View

Bowen was ahead of his time when he advanced his theory of family and social life.  He predicted that some form of a systems theory, expanding and changing as new knowledge emerged, would eventually be recognized as a more accurate view of human functioning than a narrow focus on the individual, that misses the effects of social context. For now, his theory, based on careful observation of human families, will remain unproven until scientific researchers devise experiments to prove or disprove his discovery: The family functions as an emotional, or instinctive, unit, with emergent properties that occur at the level of the group that cannot be understood only by knowledge of the individuals that make up the group.  Gradually, since Bowen developed his theory in the 1950s, science has begun to examine systems phenomena, and one of the promising areas is in stress research.

 

Since the beginning of the 21^stcentury, research on stress has increasingly focused beyond the individual to the social contexts in which the individual is born, develops, and lives. While the research is far from proving the kinds of observations that Bowen made, it is moving in the direction of a systems view by exploring the effects of the group on the individual.  Studies are revealing how interpersonal relationships and social position are linked to variation in individual health and wellbeing. The research adds to Bowen’s original understanding of human social groups, reveals some of the mechanisms that contribute to the effects Bowen observed, and opens up new and unexpected areas for research.   How social conditions regulate the genetic expression of immunity, for instance, based on recent discoveries since 2000, could not have been known or predicted by Bowen, who developed his theory in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

Regulation of Genetic Expression by Social Groups

 

While actual DNA remains relatively stable throughout life, which genes are expressed is surprisingly fluid, affected by the environment, including the social environment. That social groups regulate individuals at the molecular level of genetic expression supports Bowen’s observations that individual development and life course are determined in part by the larger systems in which they live, as well as the individual’s position in family or other social groups.

 

According to the traditional view, genes are the blueprint that determines the functioning of the cell, leading to the physiology and behaviors of the organism. More recently, scientists have begun looking at how environments at higher levels of organization are regulating the expression of specific genes.  One of the most important social conditions that regulate genetic expression is one’s early experience in the family of origin, including the quality of parenting.

 

Neuroscientist Michael Meany’s 2001 article summarizes over a decade of discoveries at his lab at McGill University in the development of stress reactivity in individuals. He showed that naturally occurring differences in parenting behavior affect the genetic expression in offspring that regulates hormonal and behavioral responses to stress.  In his animal experiments, where he observed mothers and then extrapolated to parents in general, he found that naturally occurring differences in parenting are also linked to stressful experiences suffered by a parent; the greater the stress on a parent, the more the parenting behavior leads to heightened stress reactivity in the offspring.  Individual differences in stress reactivity are transmitted from one generation to the next generation by molecular changes in the expression of genes. Parenting behavior is also transmitted intergenerationally; parenting behavior in a mother is passed down to her daughter when she has offspring of her own.

Inflammation

Chronic social stress, including social isolation and the threat of rejection, is associated with greater risk for a range of illnesses linked to intensified inflammation: depression, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and respiratory infections like pneumonia.  While this association had been well known for decades through epidemiological studies, CITE scientists have recently brought about breakthroughs in understanding the molecular mechanisms that underpin how social stress increases risk for inflammation-related illnesses.

 

Inflammation is a complex, non-specific response to harmful stimuli, including bacterial infection.  The function of inflammation is to bring swelling, blood cells, and immune cells to a site of injury and to clear the area of dead or damaged cells and tissues. When working effectively, this supports an immune response to kill pathogens and repair tissue.  Too little inflammation when needed can lead to progressive infection by the harmful stimulus such as bacteria, and compromise the survival of the organism. Yet chronic inflammation is also associated with illness.

 

Studies show that social put-downs and threats of rejection trigger inflammation in ways that work against survival. Inflammation entails a non-specific reaction to attack, and covers all the possibilities in case the organism is vulnerable to physical wounding, as occurs in war or life-threatening conflict.

 

Social Isolation

 

Social isolation has long been identified in the epidemiological literature as a risk factor for illness. In the past decade, scientists have begun to unravel the underlying mechanisms in this link.  Evidence is accruing that stressful social conditions, and especially individual sensitivity to isolation and rejection, profoundly affect the genetic expression of individuals.

Felt loneliness is associated with increased total peripheral resistance, resistance to blood flow that leads to increased blood pressure; increased activation of the sympathetic nervous system; disrupted sleep and circadian rhythm; and altered neuroendocrine function. Importantly, neither the frequency of actually being alone nor health behaviors like diet or exercise differ between lonely and non-lonely groups, providing strong evidence that it is feltloneliness, rather than being alone, or lacking social support for healthy habits, that is the important component of a pathway for cardiovascular disease.

 

The biological literature of other species does not separate “family” from “social” groups, and in the discussion of loneliness in people, “social” is a broad term that includes family relationships.   The research on social isolation has not distinguished between individuals estranged from family and those lacking friends. Bowen observed that the same emotional processes that occur in the family also occur in other social groups, though often in lesser intensity.  It is in the family of origin that we first learn how to be social beings, so it makes sense that there is a relationship in the quality of interactions between family and other groups. Yet it can be easier to appear to have good relationships with acquaintances that are kept on the surface, avoiding the deep emotional involvement characteristic of families.

 

There is individual variation in levels of felt loneliness and associated hypervigilance in the face of social threats, both real and imagined. The greater an individual’s reactivity to psychosocial environments—for instance, taking minor rejections personally and feeling easily attacked—the more likely that escalating glucocorticoids like cortisol will be triggered in an orchestrated stress response.

(McClintock, 2005)

The genome creates a living being only through interaction with its environment.  The epigenome regulates and selects genetic expression from the genome that will fit most successfully with the environment, including the social environment. Natural selection requires that the organism make use of genetic expression to optimize its survival and reproductive success in the particular physical and social environments in which it lives.  Since physical and social environments change, there is a selection pressure for genes that can be turned on or off, depending on particular demands. In this way, environmental regulation of genes occurs throughout the life span, and genes are turned on or turned off in response to changing environments. Only 25% of the variability in the life span of humans or baboons is attributed to foundational genetic factors; genetic expression in harmony with the demands of the environment plays a bigger role (Martin, Mahaney, Bronikowski, Dee Carey, Dyke, & Comuzzie, 2002; Skytthe et al., 2003).

In seminal studies, House and colleagues (House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988; House, Robbins, & Metzner, 1982) (Harrington, 2000; Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002), and Cacioppo and colleagues (Cacioppo et al., 2002a, 2002b; Hawkley, Burleson, Berntson, & Cacioppo, 2003) have identified some possible routes from loneliness to illness.

The stress of chronic perceived social isolation and rejection, experienced as loneliness, has been found to be associated with different genetic expression from individuals who are not lonely.  In the lonely, immune cells are produced to ward off bacterial infection from wounds in a hostile environment, as in war. EXPLAIN THIS MORE FULLY   In the socially connected, immune cells are produced to prevent viruses in people who are interacting closely with a wide number of associates.  In the studies, it is the person’s emotional experience of whether the social world is hostile or friendly, rather than how many social contacts the person has, that influences gene expression. (2011)

 

Genes affect behavior, but behavior also affects whether a gene is expressed.  Scientists have also become curious about genetic polymorphisms, whether and how individuals may be genetically predisposed to experience more or less sensitivity to social stress. (Slavich 2013).  It is evident that some individuals are more sensitive to social regulation, more reactive to exclusion and rejection, and more likely to take rejection personally. While it is possible that a genetic predisposition may existfor greater sensitivity to social defeat or disapproval, Bowen theory would suggest that a far greater factor in the degree of sensitivity to social stress is the family group itself, and one’s position in one’s family, rather than genetically-determined personality factors.

 

Children can grow up in the same family, yet in very different social environments.  One child may feel welcomed and at ease in the family, while another may feel rejected and unable to meet parental expectations. While the facts regarding the social regulation of human health, susceptibility to disease, and even human social behavior are increasingly becoming evident, the general perspective still holds to a more individual view than what Bowen theory posits. Bowen theory goes further toward seeing systems: Not only does the social context have a determining effect on an individual’s genetic expression, but the degree of sensitivity to the social context is also determined by the social context of the family of origin. The interaction of genetic expression and social environmental factors in future research will contribute to understanding individual differences.  How sensitive an individual is to social stress, occurs at the molecular level of gene expression that is regulated by the social environment. An individual’s behavior within his or her family or social groups may also affect how genes are expressed—his own, and those of others in his family or social group.

 

Genes and the brain influence behavior, but a new perspective is arising: The brain is changed by behavior, and behavior may also determine which genes are expressed. There is a permeability between the environment and the biology of the individual at the molecular level.  Human DNA contains around 21,000 genes, the blueprint for our molecular makeup.  However, only some of these genes are turned on, or expressed, at any given time, and hundreds of the genes have been found to be turned on or turned off by the social environment.  New knowledge of the mechanisms that allow social interactions and social experience over time to influence how hundreds of genes are expressed has opened a new perspective, broadening the view of the individual to the larger social contexts in which the individual

develops and lives.

 

The genes that are sensitive to social factors are turned on or turned off depending on whether we experience the social environment, for instance, as hostile or as friendly and welcoming.  As noted above, individuals within the same family may have very different patterns of genetic expression, depending upon that individual’s position in the family. Is the family experienced as welcoming and accepting, or blaming and rejecting?  Genes will be turned on or turned off as a result.  Does a particular social environment offer opportunity for connecting and learning, or does it require taking sides?

 

Does taking sides lead to a more inflammatory response?  There is evidence in the research that

suggests that it does. The inflammatory response to social stress, rejection, and social isolation has evolved as an ancient protection from infection from wounds received in battle.  Most people who experience an inflammatory immune response are probably not at war, but are reacting to a social environment perceived to be hostile or threatening.  If we don’t need to prepare our immune system for war, the increased inflammation is not beneficial, though it can be triggered in ordinary socially stressful situations.  When people take sides, they perceive the other side to be untrustworthy, unfriendly, or even dangerous.  Bowen theory describes the instinctive tendency in people to take sides in family, work, and social situations.  The lower the level of differentiation of self, Bowen’s complex concept that roughly approximates emotional maturity and self-regulation, the more intense and more frequent the side taking, especially under stressful conditions.

 

Bowen posited that people’s capacity to self-regulate effectively derives from the original family, and that everyone is on a continuum of differentiation of self.  At this time, these early studies in gene expression governed by social conditions are binary; people are either lonely, or they are socially connected.  The perspective of a continuum will give everyone something to shoot for in life, since even those who feel socially connected much of the time are likely to encounter social defeat or rejection at times.   A person’s sensitivity to rejection, and tendency to take it personally, may lead to genes being expressed that produce a more inflammatory physiology, whereas being able to accept occasional rejection as a realistic part of social life may allow for a healthier genetic expression.

 

Hedonic vs. Eudaimonic Happiness

 

A major part of Bowen theory addresses variationin differentiation of self.  At the higher levels of differentiation of self, an individual is able to consider the needs of the larger group along with his or her own.  The stress research has yielded remarkable knowledge regarding variation in functioning at the molecular level that reflects the level of maturity of behavior in social relationships and ability to contribute to principles and projects beyond oneself as an individual.  A major study analyzed the genetic expression of leukocyte, or white blood cell, in 80 healthy adults in the Chapel Hill, NC area.  All of the individuals chosen for the study showed high levels of happy feelings, based on a validated questionnaire.   Questions reflected both hedonic—the individual’s degree of pleasant experiences and feelings of personal satisfaction with life—and eudaimonic wellbeing—more complex social experiences, such as believing one’s life has meaning, that one is making a contribution, that one is part of a larger community, and that one is engaged in learning and growing as a person. Most of the individuals in this study scored higher in hedonic wellbeing.  About 20% scored higher in eudaimonic happiness.  People with high levels of either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being had similar levels of positive feelings, and both were at similar low risk for depression.

 

Yet their genetic expression was highly divergent.  The most significant way that the two groups were found to be unlike had to do with stress response.  People with high levels of hedonic well-being had an up-regulated expression of the stress-related conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) involving increased expression of proinflammatory genes. High levels of eudaimonic well-being were associated with a genetic expression that down-regulated CTRA, with an accompanying decrease in inflammation. The researchers conclude that their remarkable finding—that hedonic and eudaimonic well-being engage distinct gene regulatory programs despite their similar effects on feelings of well-being and lack of depressive symptoms—implies that the human genome may be more sensitive to qualitative variations in well-being than our conscious subjective feelings can tell us.

 

Both aspects of well-being, hedonic and eudaimonic, are basic to human evolution, and to an extent each supports the other and is correlated with the other. The quest for hedonic well-being, it seems, would motivate actions that would result in self-gratification, such as finding a mate, making a good living, having a high social status, and seeking pleasant experiences; while efforts toward eudaimonic well-being would lead to actions that would give greater meaning in life and more noble purpose than living just for one’s own happiness.  Eudaimonic well-being, it seems, motivates more complex social and cultural actions, including such things as achievement in art or science, work such as a nurse or teacher that benefits others, volunteering, and being a vital part of a community. Eudaimonic well-being showed an opposite regulatory profile to that associated with these adverse life circumstances, including a reversal of CTRA-linked proinflammatory transcription factors.

 

 

The gene expression differences associated with hedonic vs. eudaimonic well-being connect to genetic expression that has been linked to CTRA activation in adverse life circumstances such as low socioeconomic status, social isolation, diagnosis with a life-threatening disease, and imminent bereavement. People who score high on hedonic happiness and low on eudaimonic happiness may have a high level of personal satisfaction, social status, and financial resource, as well as happy feelings, yet have the genetic expression of people isolated and living in poverty.  People may enjoy many pleasant experiences, have achieved wealth and fame, and feel very good about themselves, yet be vulnerable to a persistent stress response of which they are unaware.  As Steve Cole, one of the leading researchers, quipped at his presentation for the Bowen Center for the Family in 2015: They are happy, but their genes don’t know they are happy.

 

Why would it be that people with high levels of hedonic happiness and low levels of eudaimonic happiness have characteristics that overlap with those who are chronically isolated?  Under extended periods of social isolation, the threat of rejection or the loss of loved ones, or even ongoing uncertainty about relationship status, gene expression shifts to conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA), characterized by increased expression of genes involved in inflammation and decreased expression of genes involved in certain antiviral responses. The CTRA transcriptional program probably evolved to support survival during times of social conflict, including war with other hominid groups.  The CTRA, with its increase in inflammation, would have been important in fighting bacterial infections from wounds.  Once the social conditions shifted to a period of more friendly interactions, the CTRA-mediated immune response would give way to genetic expression of reduced inflammation and greater effectiveness in resisting viral infections associated with close and friendly contact with numbers of conspecifics. It is likely that the social environment was characterized by alternating periods of peace and war, as well as changing patterns of social conflict and social upheaval within a tribe. Even in the early evolution of Homo sapiens, evidence suggests it was not lions and tigers that presented the greatest challenge, but warring tribes and individuals within our own tribes with whom we were in conflict—in other words, social conditions may have been decisive in the human immune response from the beginning.  The social environment of contemporary human society may trigger chronic CTRA activation by actual social threats, or even imagined threats, in situations in which there is no real danger of physical wounding.  The triggering of CTRA probably does not often promote survival in present-day, industrial societies, and is more likely to promote inflammation-mediated cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and neoplastic diseases and impair host resistance to viral infections.

 

Recent stress research suggests that people are changed on a molecular level by whether they feel welcomed and accepted, or rejected and blamed.  From a Bowen theory perspective, people who are in favorable positions within the groups of which they are a part tend to absorb less of the stress, even when a group is facing difficulty.  These individuals are either on the inside of the interlocking triangles, comfortable that they have friends and supporters within the group, or are people who are less susceptible to absorbing stress for the group, less upset by threats of rejection.  Those who are more sensitive to social rejection are more likely to be isolated, since a degree of rejection is part of all social life.  The sensitive will withdraw because it is too painful to stay in the game.

 

Differentiation of Self

 

Bowen’s concept of differentiation of self describes variation in how individuals function within the pressures of family and social groups. Those with higher levels of differentiation are less regulated by the pressures of the triangle, feel less threatened by the possibility of rejection, and are less vulnerable to picking up the stress for the group. The development of differentiation of self, on a continuum rather than a quality that some have and some don’t, is not based on an initial genetic endowment.  Rather, it is the result of processes within the family in which a sibling who grows up in a weaker position achieves a lower level of differentiation of self, absorbing more of the stress for the group, and freeing up another sibling to grow up freer, with a higher level of differentiation of self.

 

The greater the level of differentiation of self, posits Bowen, the more an individual can assess environmental conditions, including social conditions, accurately.  The greater the level of differentiation of self, the less taking things personally, resenting others, blaming others, and taking sides with some against others. There is an ability to assess a situation more accurately, with less emotional reactivity clouding judgment, and accompanying actions for a positive outcome for oneself and one’s group as a whole. How much does the stress research on variation in genetic expression correspond to Bowen’s concepts?

 

The stress research proves the extremely social nature of the human being, including a reliance on social relationships in order to forge one’s own identity and sense of self. How stress is transferred, and the reciprocal nature (in the weak position we have a tendency to play a part in our own undoing) as Bowen observed—to be explored more by researchers.