Anger, negative emotions, and cardiovascular reactivity during interpersonal conflict in women

Abstract

Objective: In order to evaluate the relationship between women's subjective emotional discomfort with anger and cardiovascular responses to stress, cardiovascular and affective responses were examined during two anger-provoking conditions: one in which anger would be in self-defense, and one in which anger would be in defense of a significant other. Methods: A total of 42 healthy, normotensive women aged 18–35 years recruited a close female friend to participate in the study with them, and were randomly assigned to one of two harassment conditions: (i) Self-Harass, where women were harassed while performing a math task; (ii) Friend-Harass, where women witnessed a close female friend being harassed while their friend performed a math task. Results: Self-Harass and Friend-Harass women reported feeling equally angry, annoyed, and irritated (all P's<.01) during their respective anger-provocation conditions. However, Self-Harass women reported experiencing significantly greater increases in feelings of depression and guilt during anger provocation ( P's<.05) relative to Friend-Harass women. Interestingly, it was also the Self-Harass women who exhibited significantly greater elevations in heart rate (HR), cardiac output (CO), systolic blood pressure (SBP), forearm blood flow (FBF), and significant reductions in forearm vascular resistance (FVR; P's<.001) relative to Friend-Harass women during anger provocation. Conclusions: Results suggest that women may experience other negative emotions (e.g., guilt, depression) when anger is in self-defense relative to when it is in defense of others, and that these emotions may play a more important role than anger in moderating cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) during interpersonal conflict.