Cardiovascular Responses to Interpersonal Interactions: Sex, Gender Role, and Gender Role Relevance of the Task

Men and women have been shown to exhibit different patterns of cardiovascular response to stress, with men commonly exhibiting greater blood pressure reactions than women and women exhibiting greater heart rate (HR) reactions than men. To examine whether this observed difference between sexes is influenced by one's gender role as well as gender role-related task characteristics, 48 young men and 48 young women were selected to complete an interpersonal interaction in two-person dyads, with traditional masculine men paired with traditional feminine women and androgynous men paired with androgynous women. Two aspects of the interpersonal interaction were manipulated: Agency (degree of challenge; High versus Low) and Communion (degree of agreement; Agree versus Disagree). HR and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) were measured during a resting, preparation, and interaction period. Participants also completed questionnaires assessing state anger and task appraisals. Results from a dyadic linear mixed model analysis revealed that traditional feminine women exhibited significantly higher HR during the interaction than traditional men, especially during the listening phases of the task. Participants with traditional gender roles exhibited higher SBP reactions to the listening phases of the task than participants with androgynous gender roles regardless of their sex. No effects for gender-relevant task characteristics were observed. The results of this study suggest that the gender role of participants is important to consider when designing studies exploring sex differences in response to interpersonal challenges.