Socially inhibited individuals show heightened DTH response during intense social engagement

To determine whether altered cellular immune response might mediate the increased health risks associated with social inhibition, we examined delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) responses in 36 adults under conditions of low and high intensity social engagement. Participants come from a study of psychological factors in functional bowel disease and fibromyalgia. Under high engagement conditions, socially inhibited individuals showed significantly increased induration in response to intradermal tetanus toxoid. Under low engagement conditions, these individuals showed less pronounced DTH responses that did not differ in magnitude from those of uninhibited individuals. This pattern of results was found using two different measures of social inhibition and was independent of social inhibition's definition as a continuously distributed trait vs a discrete category. These data are consistent with the general hypothesis that social inhibition represents a predisposition to physiologic hyperresponsiveness that requires an exogenous social trigger for expression.