title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H4B 1R6.
authors.forename: K L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Lavoie
authors.forename: S B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Conway
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Fleet
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002302:Cardiac Output; D002320:Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D019260:Expressed Emotion / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005542:Forearm / Q000098:blood supply; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*