Cardiovascular and behavioral response to social confrontation: Measuring real-life stress in the laboratory

Laboratory investigations of cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress oft en ignore concomitant differences in cognitive, affective, and behavioral r esponses that are commonly observed among study participants. To provide a more systematic laboratory methodology to examine relations among cardiovas cular behavioral, and self-report measures of cognitive and affective respo nses to stress, we developed and tested a social confrontation procedure in volving standardized interactions during two scenes. Results of three inves tigations are presented to illustrate the utility of the social confrontati on procedure. In the first two studies, this multidimensional assessment st rategy produced results which may foster research projects that bridge sepa rate areas of psychological inquiry. In one application, persons with hyper tensive parents, in contrast to persons with normotensive parents, exhibite d characteristic negative behavioral responses during both interactions as well as the more commonly-observed exaggerated blood pressure reactions. In the other study, students from less functional families (regarding cohesio n and adaptability) were shown to exhibit exaggerated blood pressure reacti ons in addition to their commonly-reported negative cognitive and behaviora l coping styles. Finally, a third study examined how a simple instructional set regarding the expression or suppression of anger influenced participan ts' responses Significant differences were observed across response domains , with anger expression resulting in a more intense response than anger sup pression. In sum, the social confrontation procedure represents an importan t methodological development for exploring the relation between response do mains, the relation between cardiovascular response to stress and psychosoc ial risk for cardiovascular disease, and the physiological and behavioral d istinction between anger expression and anger suppression.