Psychological And Social Constructs - The Common Cold Project

The Common Cold Project  ›  Measures by Study  ›  Psychological and Social Constructs Psychological and Social Constructs

Numerous psychological and social constructs were assessed across the 5 cold studies via self-administered questionnaire and/or telephone interview before viral-challenge.  These constructs include characteristics of the social environment (e.g. perceived social support, social integration), stress (e.g. perceived stress, stressful life events), state/trait affect, psychological well-being (e.g. self-esteem, purpose in life, life satisfaction) and personality (e.g. extraversion, neuroticism).   While not all specific constructs were assessed in each study, several variables were measured consistently, such as perceived stress, social integration, and trait affect.  In some cases, similar constructs were measured in more than one study, but the specific instruments used to assess those constructs differed (e.g., Eysenck Personality Inventory vs. Goldberg’s Adjective Scale to measure extraversion).  To facilitate combining the 5 studies, the data set includes standardized versions of differing variables that represent the same construct. The table below lists the psychological and social constructs that were assessed in the 5 cold studies, and the specific measures used to assess them in each.  More detailed information on how each construct was assessed can be obtained by clicking on the name of the measure.

Construct	BCS	PCS1	PCS2	PMBC	PCS3
Affect
State	✔	✔	✔
Trait	✔	✔	✔	✔
Childhood / Adolescence
Family, physical, and social environments	✔
Perceived stress	✔
Religious upbringing	✔	✔
Socioeconomic status	✔	✔
Subjective socioeconomic status	✔
Marital Quality		✔	✔
Personality, general
Big 5	✔	✔	✔	✔
Optimism	✔	✔	✔
Anger expression	✔
Personality, social
Agreeableness and Extraversion	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Attachment style	✔
Communal orientation	✔	✔	✔
Eliciting self-disclosure from others	✔	✔
Hostility	✔	✔
Shyness	✔
Social Relationships
Perceived availability of social support	✔	✔	✔	✔
Perceived tendency to give support	✔
Positive relationships	✔	✔	✔
Social network size and Social integration	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Daily social interactions and Daily social rhythms	✔	✔	✔
Social control	✔
Social participation	✔
Community ties	✔
Perceived community		✔
Negative interactions	✔	✔
Enjoyable activities	✔
Pet ownership	✔
Loneliness	✔
Socioeconomic Status, objective
Traditional (education, occupation, income)	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Non-traditional (home ownership, home size, vehicle            ownership, newspaper delivery, out-of-town vacations	✔	✔	✔
Socioeconomic Status, subjective
Relative social standing - United States	✔	✔	✔
Relative social standing - community	✔	✔	✔
Stress
Major stressful life events - checklist	✔	✔
Major stressful life events - interview	✔	✔
Subjective global	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Subjective job	✔
Other Psychological Measures
Psychological functioning (depressive symptoms,           emotion regulation, alexithymia, reactive responding)	✔	✔	✔
Life satisfaction	✔
Life effort	✔
Mastery & control	✔	✔	✔	✔
Purpose in life	✔	✔	✔
Religious background	✔
Self-esteem	✔	✔	✔

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• Department of Psychology