Citation

The presence of sickness in human individuals presents a significant healthcare burden. Understanding an individual’s different sickness responses may help us to better manage sickness and its symptoms. Sickness induces changes in both physiology and affect. These behavioral ramifications have been extensively researched with the intravenous injection of the bacterial endotoxin E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which causes an acute inflammatory-induced sickness response. Previous research shows that positive affect is reduced during sickness while the physical sickness response increases. Hedonic capacity
refers to a person’s ability to experience pleasure and may explain differences among individuals’ reactions of patterns and adaptations in the face of sickness. This could be due to the fact that lower levels of hedonic capacity indicate an already reduced to ability to experience pleasure that might be further diminished by the physiological and psychological changes associated with sickness. This study aimed to research the extent to which hedonic
capacity affects affective and physical sickness response. It was hypothesized that individuals with a higher hedonic capacity experience less reduction in positive affect as well as smaller increases in physical sickness response during an inflammatory-induced sickness compared to individuals with lower hedonic capacity. This study was part of a larger cohort study. 110 healthy indivduals were screened and injected with LPS. Physical responses and state
questionnaires were conducted. Multiple linear regression analyses were done. No significant relationships were observed between hedonic capacity and physical or affective sickness response. Additional neuropsychological research is recommended to investigate these results.