Harassment, hostility, and Type A as determinants of cardiovascular reactivity during competition

Abstract

Anger/hostility and Type A behavior have been implicated in elevated cardiovascular reactivity and disease. In the present experiment systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and heart rate (HR) were monitored during conditions of competition alone or in conjunction with goal blocking or harassment. Cardiovascular reactivity was examined as a function of conditions, Type A or B pattern, and various measures of anger/hostility. Harassment elicited significantly elevated SBP and HR changes relative to goal-blocking and control conditions. Type As reliably exceeded Type Bs in magnitude of SBP change during the harassment condition only. However, exploratory analyses correlating anger/hostility measures and cardiovascular reactivity indicated that only subjects scoring high on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory showed significantly elevated SBP reactivity as a function of Type A behavior pattern, rated hostility during the A-B interview, or outward expression of anger assessed by the Framingham Anger-In vs Anger-Out Scale.

Psychosocial factors associated with cardiovascular reactivity in older adults.

“…Given the overall magnitude of reactivity, it was telling that both caregivers and noncaregivers were more aroused by the emotional than the cognitive task. This result is consistent with reactivity studies in which the salience of a task was shown to be important (15,44). Moreover, greater BP reactivity was related to higher hostility, higher Expressed Emotion (criticism), and greater avoidance in response to the emotional task but not the cognitive task.…”

“…Suppressed anger has been associated with elevated systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP) (25), and elevated reactivity (26). Anger expressed outward has been associated with decreased (27) as well as increased reactivity (4,15,28). (2) observed that most reactivity studies have been performed in the laboratory with very few using naturalistic settings or salient tasks.…”

“…It has been argued that coronary heart disease (CHD) is more prevalent in Type A than in Type B individuals (11,12) because Type A's have greater SNS arousal (13,14). In fact, positive relations between hostility and cardiovascular reactivity have generally been replicated (4,(15)(16)(17).…”

Competitiveness and hemodynamic reactions to competition

“…Consequently, the effects of competition on psychophysiological activity should be related to individual differences in dispositional competitiveness. There is evidence that individuals classified as Type A, who characteristically display high levels of competitiveness, show greater heart rate and blood pressure reactions in challenging and competitive settings than those classified as Type B Dembroski, MacDougall, Herd, & Shields, 1979; Diamond et al, 1984;Glass et al, 1980;Jennings, 1984;Shahidi, Henley, Willows, & Furnham, 1991;Van Egeren, 1979!. However, it is not clear which components of Type A behavior drive these effects, given that Type A can embrace time urgency, hostility, and job involvement, as well as competitiveness.…”

Task-induced cardiovascular activity and the presence of a supportive or undermining other

“…Thus, the results of both these studies are perhaps not necessarily wholly inconsistent with our main finding that circumstances likely to challenge self-esteem and undermine positive self-evaluations can augment taskprovoked cardiovascular activity. Collateral support comes from a number of reports that the presence of a harassing and challenging confederate provokes elevations in cardiovascular activity (Diamond, Schneiderman, Schwartz, Smith, Vorp and DeCarlo Pasin, 1984;Engebretson, Matthews, Scheier, 1989;Glass, Krakoff, Finkelman, Snow, Contrada, Kehoe, Mannucci, Isecke, Collins, Hilton and Etling, 1980). While the bulk of the literature in this domain has been concerned with the potential health-enhancing effects of social support, there is now a range of converging evidence suggesting an association between unsatisfactory and undermining social ties and poor health and well-being (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler and Schilling, 1989;Burg and Seeman, 1990;Rook, 1992).…”