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Psychosomatic Medicine 23:33-40 (1961)
© 1961 American Psychosomatic Society

Adrenal Steroid Excretion Patterns in Eighteen Healthy Subjects

Tentative Correlations with Personality Structure

HENRY M. FOX M.D.1, BENJAMIN J. MURAWSKI Ph.D.1, ANTHONY F. BARTHOLOMAY S.D.1, and SANFORD GIFFORD M.D.1

1 Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, and the Medical Clinics, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Mass.

A correlative study of adrenal steroid excretion patterns and personality in 18 healthy young college men indicated (1) that the 24-hr. urinary excretion rates of 17-hydroxycorticosteroids and 17-ketosteroids were relatively constant over a period of 5 wk.; (2) that individuals maintained the same relative position throughout this period of observation in regard to the others within the group studied according to an identifiable steroid excretion pattern; and (3) that the level of output of 17-hydroxycorticosteroids could, in a general way, be related to certain aspects of personality.

The analysis of variance technique was used to analyze the data statistically. The subjects were studied psychologically by means of tape-recorded personal interviews with senior psychiatrists and also by psychological tests of perception including the Rorschach. The steroid values of the individual subjects did not vary significantly from day to day; nearly all of the variance was produced by the differences in mean levels from one subject to another. The 17-hydroxycorticosteroid rather than the 17-ketosteroid levels were used as a basis for psychophysiological correlation.

The data suggested the tentative hypothesis that the more a person reacts emotionally, the higher the level of the 17-hydroxycorticosteroids. The more guarded the individual, the more that control is exercised over feelings, the lower the 17-hydroxycorticosteroids. At one extreme of a psychophysiological continuum are the individuals with vivid personal feelings who experience a sense of emotional urgency and, at the other extreme, those who.are relatively guarded and withdrawn.

Submitted on March 2, 1960






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Copyright © 1961 by the American Psychosomatic Society