DOMINANCE PERSONALITY-TRAIT AND IMMUNE-SYSTEM IN HEALTHY-VOLUNTEERS

Correlations between dominant personality traits and certain diseases or high-risk factors for diseases mediated by the immune system have b een postulated and, to some extent, verified for over 30 years. We bel ieved that certain correlations between immunological target parameter s and personality traits exist even in healthy subjects. Determining t he personality structure and an immunological profile in 69 volunteers , we found significant differences for leukocytes and the subpopulatio ns CD4, CD13, HLA-DR, and pronounced differences for CD20, CD14 and th e interleukines IL-2 and sIL-2R between the dominant and submissive su bjects. Furthermore, case analysis of extreme subjects showed that dom inant subjects exhibited an apparently more activated immune system th an did submissives. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.