fei75766_ch06_179-205.indd 201  02/06/20 11:32 AM
Chapter 6    Horney: Psychoanalytic Social Theory201
colleagues designed astudy toinvestigate therelationship between neuroticism, rec-
ognition ofthreats, andmood. They predicted thatforthose highinneuroticism, the
ability toaccurately recognize threats intheenvironment would berelated todecreased 
negative mood. Inother words, theneurotic sensitivity tothreat would serve apurpose 
inthatsuchpeople could recognize problems, andpresumably avoid them, andthat
successful avoidance would make them feelbetter.
Interestingly, Robinson andcolleagues found thatthere actually isawayto
bea“successful neurotic.” Specifically, theydiscovered thatforthose whoarepre-
disposed toward being neurotic, theability toreact adaptively toerrors (i.e.,toslow
down andthink carefully) while assessing threat wasrelated toexperiencing lessnega-
tivemood indaily life(Robinson etal.,2007).
Totestthishypothesis, Robinson andcolleagues (2007) had181students come 
intothelabandcomplete aself-report measure ofneuroticism andthenengage ina
computer taskthatmeasured theirability toaccurately detect threats. Theteam then
assessed whatstudents didupon making anerror indetecting athreat. Ifaperson makes 
anerror, theadaptive thing todowould betoslowdown andassess thesituation more 
carefully. Butnoteveryone doesthis,andthecomputer taskusedbyRobinson and
colleagues measured whether people exhibited theappropriate response tomaking an
error. Thecomputer taskconsisted ofaword appearing onacomputer screen andthen
theparticipant, asquickly aspossible, hadtodetermine whether ornottheword rep-
resented athreat. Forexample, theword “stench” doesnotrepresent athreat, butthe
word “knife” does. Thecomputer kepttrack ofhowlongparticipants tookatdeciding 
whether ornottheword wasathreat andwhether ornottheparticipant correctly iden-
tified thethreat. Additionally, when theparticipant made anerror, thecomputer also
kepttrack ofhowlongaparticipant tooktodetermine whether ornotthenextword to
appear onthescreen represented athreat. Once theresearchers hadeachparticipant’s 
neuroticism score andagood measure ofhowtheydetected threats andreacted to
errors, participants wereasked tokeeptrack oftheirmood overthenext7days.
Building thecasefurther forneuroticism notbeing allbadaresome surpris -
ingstudies ofhealth outcomes andlongevity. Friedman (2019, 2000) proposed the
concept of“healthy neuroticism,” which reflects acombination ofthevigilance and
worry thatweallassociate withneuroticism withhighconscientiousness reflected in
responsibility andattentiveness. Thisblend oftraits maymake some people better 
abletoadjust theirhealth behaviors intimes ofstress andchallenge. Forexample, 
those whoaredistressed andworried about apotentially badhealth outcome might 
bemore likely tocooperate withmedical advice, keeptheirdoctors’ appointments, 
andevenavoid substance abuse while illorfacing challenging lifecircumstances. 
Indeed some studies havelinked higher neuroticism withlower mortality riskinsome 
populations (e.g., Gabe etal.,2017).
Turiano, Mroczek, Moynihan, andChapman (2013) conducted afascinating 
study ofthis“healthy neuroticism,” linking ittoinflammation, inover1,000 Ameri -
canadults between theagesof25and74.Theparticipants completed apersonality 
traitsurvey, several surveys regarding theirhealth, andhadblood samples collected 
andtested forthepresence ofinterleuken-6 (IL-6), apro-andanti-inflammatory mol-
ecule. They found thatbothneuroticism andconscientiousness wereassociated with
IL-6. Most interestingly, however, those withhigher scores onbothneuroticism and
conscientiousness hadlower levels ofinflammation. Here weseeabiological marker Final PDF to printer