title: Relationship between neuroticism, threat of shock and heart rate variability reactivity.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between Neuroticism, non-executive functioningand heart rate variability (HRV) in both threat and non-threat situations. Sixty-five male sailors fromthe Royal Norwegian Navy participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned into non-threat andthreat groups. Neuroticism was measured by the NEO-PI-R and, based on the median-split of Neuroticism,groups were divided into 2 additional groups. A Visual Search Task was used to measure non-executivefunctioning. HRV reactivity was measured during baseline-, test- and recovery-conditions. Overall, the resultsrevealed that there were no differences between any of the groups in terms of the performance onthe Visual Search Task: this was true for both accuracy data and mean reaction time. However, the resultsshowed that the High Neuroticism Threat Group had a significant increase in HRV from test-condition torecovery. This may indicate that the High Neuroticism Threat Group found the whole task condition morestressful due to the threat situation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. anita.hansen@psysp.uib.no
authors.forename: Anita L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Bjørn Helge
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Johnsen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D004560:Electricity / Q000009:adverse effects; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D009326:Naval Medicine; D000075384:Neuroticism; D009664:Norway; D011897:Random Allocation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult