Cognitive appraisal, emotional and cardiovascular responses of high and low dominant subjects in active performance situations

Effects of trait dominance on psychological and cardiovascular responses to social influence attempts: the role of gender and partner dominance

“…Consistent with previous findings on the cardiovascular and psychological correlates of trait dominance (Gramer, 2003), high compared to low dominant subjects were expected to respond to a situation requiring effortful social influence attempts with higher appraised coping ability and more pronounced cardiac activation (indicated by greater increases in SBP and eventually smaller DBP effects). The adaptive stress response of dominant subjects should also be expressed in faster recovery of cardiovascular reactivity after stressor offset.…”

“…To date, little is known about the psychological mechanisms potentially accounting for the effects of dominance on cardiovascular reactivity. Gramer (2003) found dominance to moderate consistent and substantial differences in appraised coping efficacy and experienced distress, further supporting the view of more effective coping in high dominant subjects. Contrary to the appraisal theory formulated by Tomaka et al (1993), however, cognitive task appraisals were unrelated to cardiovascular reactivity.…”

“…In agreement with this interpretation, cardiac activity was found to be moderated by factors that are likely to influence performance motivation, such as intermediate task difficulty (Smith et al, 1990;Wright et al, 1998), incentives (Gramer and Huber, 1996;Smith et al, 1989) and evaluative observation (Kelsey et al, 2000). Recent research suggests that task engagement in active coping conditions may also be moderated by personality traits involving individual differences in the motives to display active and controlling behavior, such as trait dominance (Gramer, 2003) or assertiveness (Tomaka et al, 1999). The cardiovascular impact of dominant behavior has been demonstrated by studies noting pronounced, sympathetically mediated SBP and/or HR reactivity in situations requiring effortful attempts to influence interaction partners or social equivalents of active coping (Gramer and Huber, 1996;Smith et al, 1996Smith et al, , 2000.…”

“…As indicated above, high and low dominant subjects might also differ in cardiovascular recovery or return to prestress levels (Gramer, 2003). Adaptation patterns observed in male subjects may not necessarily hold for females, however (Light et al, 1993).…”

“…The cardiovascular impact of dominant behavior has been demonstrated by studies noting pronounced, sympathetically mediated SBP and/or HR reactivity in situations requiring effortful attempts to influence interaction partners or social equivalents of active coping (Gramer and Huber, 1996;Smith et al, 1996Smith et al, , 2000. Investigations that directly assessed the influence of trait dominance on cardiovascular reactivity are few in number, but at least among men, available data suggest enhanced cardiac influences in high dominant subjects, indicated by elevated SBP reactivity (Gramer, 2003;Newton et al, 1999), whereas the responses of submissive subjects seem to be characterized by relatively greater vascular or DBP effects and enhanced distress (Gramer, 2003). Submissive men were also noted to display slower habituation of cardiovascular responses during task performance (Gramer and Huber, 1997;Rejeski et al, 1989) and less complete DBP recovery (Gramer, 2003).…”