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Defensive hostility, gender and cardiovascular levels and responses to stress

  • Empirical Research
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Prior studies have demonstrated inconsistent relationships between the trait of hostility and cardiovascular responses to stress. To examine the hypothesis that only a subset of hostile subjects demonstrates greater cardiovascular responses to stress, we assessed relationships among hostility, defensiveness, and cardiovascular responses to stress in 33 healthy men and 34 healthy women. Stressors used were math and speech tasks. Median splits on Cook-medley Hostility Inventory (Ho) and defensiveness [Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale (MC)] classified subjects into four groups: (a) Defensive Hostile (DH-high Ho and MC), (b) Low Hostile (LH-low Ho and MC), (c) High Hostile (HH-high Ho, low MC), and (d) Defensive (Def-low Ho, high MC). Results indicate that Defensive Hostility is differentially related to cardiovascular levels in men and women. DH men exhibited greater systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels than LH, Def, and HH men. Analyses of diastolic blood pressures (DBPs) suggested a trend that LH and DH men demonstrated greater DBP levels than Def and HH men. In contrast, DH women were indistinguishable from HH and Def women with respect to blood pressure, and LH women demonstrated the lowest SBP and DBP levels. There were no personality differences in cardiovascular change scores to stress. Gender differences for affect were observed which may mediate the cardiovascular responses. These data suggest that the personality trait of Defensive Hostility may provide significant associations with blood pressure levels and coronary disease associations with blood pressure levels and coronary disease in studies that do not find associations using hostility alone.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Exercise and Health Science, York University, 350 Bethune, 4700 Keele Street, M3J 1P3, North York, ON, Canada

    Karin F. Helmers

  2. Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, USA

    David S. Krantz

Authors
  1. Karin F. Helmers
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  2. David S. Krantz
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Additional information

Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by grants from the USUHS (R07233) and NHLBI (HL47337 and HL07380). The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the views of the USUHS or the Department of Defense.

Karin F. Helmers was a recipient of a research fellowship from the Medical Research Council of Canada and a computer equipment grant from Marion Merrell Dow, Inc.

This study was conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation by the first author.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ivan Graf for his help during the data collection.

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Helmers, K.F., Krantz, D.S. Defensive hostility, gender and cardiovascular levels and responses to stress. Ann Behav Med 18, 246–254 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02895286

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