Boyce – reactivity  

Reactivity refers to the deviation of a biological parameter from some kind of baseline or resting condition. So, for example, in its most rudimentary form it might be the deviation baseline heart rate from resting levels to an accelerated level during the performance of some kind of a challenging or threatening task. 

One of the unanticipated findings from our work has been that the children who are exceptionally reactive in these biological systems to challenges and laboratory stressors, not only have more disease and disorder under conditions of naturally occurring stress but when raised or embedded within social circumstances that are truly supportive and nurturing and predictable. They don’t just have normative levels of these kinds of disease outcomes but they actually have lower, significantly lower levels. And our interpretation of that finding has been that what we’re seeing in reactivity is not just stress susceptibility but in fact is susceptibility to all kinds of social conditions, both good and bad. So that biological sensitivity to context refers to this group of children’s tendency to have much worse outcomes under undesirable circumstances and much better outcomes than their peers under very good circumstances.  

And you know, our colleague Steve Suomi’s work is a good example of the homology between the kinds of things that we’re finding and the kinds of things that Steve has shown, for example in cross-fostering work. And the same, by the way, would be true of Michael Meaney’s work in a rodent model. But what all three of those have in common is the finding that when you take these exceptionally sensitive individuals and place them into highly nurturant, supportive environments, you don’t just normalize their outcomes, you actually find that the outcomes are better than normal.