FRIDAY, Feb. 15 (HealthDay News) -- There's new evidence that
getting along with others is more than a key to pleasant human
interaction. It also appears to be good for your health.
Researchers who studied a survey of almost 700 older adults
found that those who got along with their relatives, friends and
neighbors were less likely to report health problems and physical
limitations.
The findings don't prove a cause-and-effect relationship between
social life and health. Still, "the take-home message is that
conflict in your life may have important impacts on your physical
health," said study lead author Jason T. Newsom, associate
professor at the Portland State University School of Community
Health in Oregon.
There's nothing really new about a supposed link between
attitude and health, but Newsom said his study was unique, because
it looked specifically at interactions between people.
Newsom and his colleagues looked at the results of a multi-year
national survey of people aged 65 to 90. A total of 666 people
completed the survey, in which researchers asked them questions
about their lives and their health.
Many of the questions were designed to reveal whether the study
participants were prone to have "negative social interactions" with
other people, Newsom said. The questions asked whether "people have
interfered or meddled in your personal matters, have they acted
unsympathetically or been critical of you. We asked them in a very
general way," he said.
The survey didn't ask whether the participants were the
instigators of negative encounters -- by being crabby or cranky,
for instance -- or the victims of others who made their lives
difficult.
The researchers found that those who reported more negative
social encounters suffered greater declines in health.
"What we suspect is that there's some impact on the immune
system, but there are other kinds of things that might be happening
as well," Newsom said. "It may be that when there's a great deal of
interpersonal conflict going on in someone's life, they're not able
to take care of medical conditions as well."
The findings were published in the journal
Health Psychology.
The study authors noted that their research had limitations. It
only looked at senior citizens and relied on their own estimates of
their health status instead of physical examinations, for one, and
only examined changes over two years.
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, director of the Ohio State University
College of Medicine's Division of Health Psychology, said the new
study came from "a group of excellent investigators." But, she
added, she would like to have seen more analysis of whether the
study participants were depressed.
"When people are blue, they tend to be overly sensitive to
negative interactions, to feel that others are often unsympathetic
-- and then they behave in ways that tend to elicit even more
negative behaviors from others," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "They're
cranky and critical and cantankerous. If you're seeing the world
through dark-colored glasses, you're more likely to focus on how
unsympathetic or insensitive other people act toward you, and
there's a big element of self-fulfilling prophecy."
Newsom acknowledged that it's no easy task to make people get
along better. But, he said, studies have shown that one approach --
conflict-resolution training -- actually works.
More information
To learn more about conflict-resolution training, visit the
University of Wisconsin.
