Cardiovascular reactivity, stress, and personal emotional salience: Choose your tasks carefully
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Bourassa & Sbarra (2022) - ...
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Final Accepted Manuscript
Affiliation
Department of Psychology, University of ArizonaIssue Date
2022-03-15
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WileyCitation
Bourassa, K. J., & Sbarra, D. A. (2022). Cardiovascular reactivity, stress, and personal emotional salience: Choose your tasks carefully. Psychophysiology.Journal
PsychophysiologyRights
© 2022 Society for Psychophysiological Research.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Both greater cardiovascular reactivity and lesser reactivity (“blunting”) to laboratory stressors are linked to poor health outcomes, including among people who have a history of traumatic experiences. In a sample of recently separated and divorced adults (N = 96), this study examined whether differences in cardiovascular reactivity might be explained by differences in the personal emotional salience of the tasks and trauma history. Participants were assessed for trauma history, current distress related to their marital dissolution, and cardiovascular reactivity during two tasks, a serial subtraction math stressor task and a divorce-recall task. Participants with a greater trauma history evidenced less blood pressure reactivity to the serial subtraction task (a low personal emotional salience task) when compared to participants with less trauma history. In contrast, participants with a greater trauma history evidenced higher blood pressure reactivity to the divorce-recall task, but only if they also reported more divorce-related distress (high personal emotional salience). These associations were not significant for heart rate reactivity. Among people with a history of more traumatic experiences, a task with low personal salience was associated with a lower blood pressure response, whereas a task with higher personal emotional salience was associated with a higher blood pressure response. Future studies examining cardiovascular reactivity would benefit from determining the personal emotional salience of tasks, particularly for groups that have experienced stressful life events or trauma.Note
12 month embargo; first published: 15 March 2022ISSN
0048-5772EISSN
1469-8986Version
Final accepted manuscriptSponsors
National Institute of Mental Healthae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1111/psyp.14037