Rejection and Immune Function

There's a lot of research showing the impact of peer rejection on various facets of kids' lives, but this one was new to me: The June 2008 issue of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics will include a study examining the effect of peer rejection on youth's immune systems. High school students, their peers, and their teachers completed questionnaires providing information about their emotional reactivity, physical health problems, depressive symptoms, peer rejection, and family adversity.

The researchers found that peer rejection predicted immune status a year later, but this was only true for emotionally reactive girls. Rejection had no impact on boys' immune functioning.

You can read more here.

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