Crime, hostility, wife battering, and the heart: On the Meehan et al. (2001) failure to replicate the Gottman et al. (1995) typology

Comments on the J. C. Meehan, A. Holtzworth-Munroe, and K. Herron (2001) fa ilure to replicate the J. M. Gottman et al. (1995) results of 2 different t ypes of batterers, defined by heart rate reactivity: Type 1 men lowered the ir heart rate from baseline to the high-conflict marital discussion, and Ty pe 2 men increased their heart rate from baseline to the high-conflict mari tal discussion. Discussion is about criminality-psychopathy literature asso ciated hypoarousal and hyporeactivity and the hostility-cardiovascular dise ase literature, which reports associated hyperreactivity and hostility rela ted to cardiovascular disease. The Type 1-Type 2 distinction should be refe rred to these two venerable literatures. This article proposes the hypothes is that the Meehan et al. study failed to replicate Gottman et al. because it used a low-conflict marital discussion rather than the high-conflict dis cussion Gottman et al. used. This article reviews a study that did use a hi gh-conflict marital task and found results generally supporting the Gottman et al. findings.