Cardiovascular response as a function of predisposition, coping behavior and stimulus type

The present study investigated cardiovascular responses to three different laboratory stressors in either low or high heart rate reactors. It was predicted that there would be stimulus specific responses for either a mild pressure pain, mental arithmetic, or projective test stimulus. Mild pain was to reflect a passive coping condition, and mental arithmetic an active one while the projective test was to represent an ambiguous stimulus condition permitting idiosyncratic behavioral responding. Blood pressure and heart rate responses revealed the predicted small response to mild pressure pain and the predicted stress response to mental arithmetic. Low and high heart rate reactors did not differ in response to mild pain or the projective task but differed greatly in response to the arithmetic task. The data further indicated that low heart rate reactors responded with a larger response in blood pressure and heart rate to the projective test than to the mental arithmetic, whereas the high heart rate reactors displayed an inverse pattern. Psychological trait or situational, behavioral variables failed to predict the physiological response.