Abstract

The study's first goal investigated what type of thoughts and underlying emotions are exactly experienced by high versus low hostile participants following an anger provoking interpersonal stressor. Results revealed that high compared to low hostile participants experienced overall significantly more inferred thoughts of negative emotional valence; emotions that they did not express in a direct manner. It was suggested, that high hostiles might be high on the trait of Negative Affectivity. When specific emotion categories were analyzed, results revealed that high compared to low hostile individuals experienced overall more sad-inferred thoughts; sad thoughts that they did not express in a direct manner. Furthermore, the study found that high compared to low hostile participants ruminate more to sadness. The combined results of more sad-inferred thoughts and significantly more rumination to sadness, lends support to the interpretation, that high hostile individuals may be vulnerable for the development of sustained depressed mood and perhaps even depression. These results are important given that depression, even milder depressive symptoms have been found to be independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease in general and coronary heart disease in particular. This study did not find associations between cardiovascular reactivity and hostility or rumination to sadness. The absence of an association between hostility and cardiovascular reactivity is, however, consistent with the specific emotion category results found in this study. Research suggests that it is the high hostile's propensity to experience more frequent and more intense emotions in the anger category that is directly linked to heightened cardiovascular reactivity. This study did not find that anger-thoughts and anger intensities were significantly higher for high compared to low hostile participants following the anger provoking interpersonal stressor. It was suggested that the lack of heightened cardiovascular reactivity to interpersonal stress is due to the finding that the high hostile participants in this study did not experience more frequent and intense anger.