HOSTILITY, ANGER AND AGGRESSION: PHYSIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES IN A SAMPLE OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN FROM NORTHERN MEXICO

Authors

  • Dora Isabel Lozano Ramírez Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez
  • Miguel Angel Pacheco Favela Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez
  • Lilia Susana Carmona García Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez
  • Jesús Humberto Burciaga Robles Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29365/rpcc.20180529-64

Keywords:

Aggression, Hostility, Parasympathetic activity, Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, sympathetic activity

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine if there were physiological differences between college women who scored high and those who scored low on a scale measuring hostility, anger and aggression during a non-harassing task.  Measurements of heart rate, skin conductance (SCL), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were taken during a task designed to elicit anticipatory fear.  To measure aggression and its three components, Buss and Perry’s Aggression Questionnaire was used (1992).  The results show that there was a significant difference in RSA (F(7,58)=2.225, p=.45, ?2= .212).   These results suggest that hostile women have low levels of parasympathetic activity prior to the periods of stress, and they are important because they indicate that the physiological differences between hostile and non- hostile women can emerge even with tasks with low levels of provocation.

References

Bailey, A. A., & Hurd, P. L. (2005). Finger-length ratio (2D:4D) correlates with physical aggression in men but not in women. Biological Psychology, 68(3), 215-222. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2004.05.001

Beauchaine, T. P. (2001). Vagal tone, development, and Gray’s motivational theory: Toward an integrated model of autonomic nervous system functioning in psyhopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 13(2), 183-214. Recuperado de: http://tpb.psy.ohio-state.edu/papers/VT.pdf

Beauchaine, T. P. (2015). Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia: A transdiagnostic biomarker of emotion dysregulation and psychopathology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 3, 43-47. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.01.017

Begue, L., & Muller, D. (2006). Belief in a just world as a moderator of hostile attributional bias. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 117-126. doi: 10.1348/014466605X37314

Boscarino, J. A. & Figley, C. R. (2009). The impact of repression, hostility, and post-traumatic stress disorder on all-cause mortality: A prospective 16-year follow-up study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197(6), 461-466. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e3181a61f3e

Burton, L. A., Hafetz, J. & Henninger, D. (2007). Gender differences in relational and physical aggression. Social Behavior and Personality, 35(1), 41-50. doi: 10.2224/sbp.2007.35.1.41

Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 452-459. Recuperado de: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.455.5915&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Chahín-Pinzón, N., Lorenzo-Seva, U. & Vigil-Colet, A. (2011). Características psicométricas de la adaptación colombiana del cuestionario de agresividad de Buss y Perry en una muestra de preadolescentes y adolescentes de Bucaramanga. Universitas Psychologicas, 11(3), 979-988. Recuperado de:

http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/revPsycho/article/download/1079/2888

Chida, Y. & Steptoe, A. (2009). The association of anger and hostility with future coronary heart disease a meta-analytic review of prospective evidence. Journal of American College of Cardiology, 53(11), 936-946. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2008.11.044.

Cohen, B. E., Panguluri, P., Na, B., & Whooley, M. A. (2010). Psychological risk factors and the metabolic syndrome in patients with coronary heart disease: Findings from the Heart and Soul study. Psychiatry Research, 175(1-2), 133-137. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2009.02.004.

Cook, W. W., & Medley, D. M. (1954). Proposed hostility and pharisaic-virtue scales for the MMPI. Journal of Applied Psychology, 38(6), 414-418. doi: 10.1037/h0060667

Demaree, H. A., & Everhart, D. E. (2004). Healthy high hostiles: Reduced parasympathetic activity and decreased sympathovagal flexibility during negative emotional processing. Personality and Individual Differences, 457-469. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00109-0

Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V., J. (1986). Gender and aggressive behavior: A meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100(3), 309-330. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.100.3.309

García, M., Mulvagh, S. L., Bairey Merz, C. N., Buring, J. E. & Manson, J. E. (2016). Cardiovascular disease in women. Clinical perspectives. Circulation Research, 118(8), 1273-1293. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.116.307547

Isen, J., Raine, A., Baker, L. A., Dawson, M., Bezdjian, S., & Lozano, D.I. (2010). Sex-specific association between psychopathic traits and electrodermal reactivity in children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119(1), 216-225. doi: 10.1037/a0017777

Klabbers, G., Bosma, H., van den Akker, M., Kempen, G. I. J. M., & van Eijk, J. T. M. (2012). Cognitive hostility predicts all-cause mortality irrespective of behavioral risk at late middle and older age. European Journal of Public Health, 23(4), 701-705. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cks060

Marsland, A. L., Prather, A. A., Petersen, K. L., Cohen, S. & Manuck, S. B. (2008). Antagonistic characteristics are positively associated with inflammatory markers independently of trait negative emotionality. Brain Behavior Immunology, 22(5), 753-761. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2007.11.008

Mezzacappa, E., Tremblay, R. E., Kindlon, D., Saul, J. P., Arseneault, L., Pihl, R. O., & Earls, F. (1996). Relationship of aggression and anxiety to autonomic regulation of heart rate variability in adolescent males. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 794, 376-379. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1996.tb32547.x

Moretti, M. M., Catchpole, R. E. H., & Odgers, C. (2005). The dark side of girlhood: Recent trends, risk factors and trajectories to aggression and violence. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14(1), 21-25. Recuperado de: http://www.cacap-acpea.org/uploads/documents/67/Feb05TheDarkSideofGirlhood.pdf

Murray-Close, D., & Crick, N. R. (2007). Gender differences in the association between cardiovascular reactivity and aggressive conduct. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 65(2), 103-113. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2007.03.011

Pérez Matías, O. M., Ortega Andrade, N. A., Rincón Arenas, A. B., García Cruz, R., & Romero Ramírez, M. A. (2013). Propiedades psicométricas del cuestionario de agresión en dos muestras diferentes de Hidalgo, México. European Scientific Journal, 9(32), 107-120. Recuperado de: https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/2017/1929

Pine, D. S., Wasserman, G. A., Miller, L., Coplan, J. D., Bagiella, E., Kovelenku, P., Myers, M. M., & Sloan, R. P. (1998). Heart period variability and psychopathology in urban boys at risk for delinquency. Psychophysiology, 35(5), 521-529. doi: 10.1017/S0048577298970846

Porges, S. W. (1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology, 32(4), 301-318. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1995.tb01213.x

Porges, S. W. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116-145. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.06.009

Reyna, C., Lello Ivancevich, M. G., Sanchez, A. & Brussino, S. (2011). The Buss-Perry aggression questionnaire: Construct validity and gender invariance among Argentinean adolescents. International Journal of Psychological Research, 4(2), 30-37. Recuperado de: http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2990/299023516004.pdf

Sallis, J. F., Johnson, C. C., Trevorrow, T. R., & Kaplan, R. M. (1987). The relationship between cynical hostility and blood pressure reactivity. Journal of Psychometric Research, 31(1), 111-116. doi: 10.1016/0022-3999(87)90105-X

Sloan, R. P., Bagiella, E., Shapiro, P. A., Kuhl, J. P., Chernikhova, D., Berg, J., & Myers, M. M. (2001). Hostility, sex, and cardiac autonomic control. Psychosomatic Medicine, 63, 434-440. doi: 10.1097/00006842-199901000-00025

Sloan, R. P., Shapiro, P. A., Bigger, T., Bagiella, E., Steinman, R. C., & Gorman, J. M. (1994). Cardiac autonomic control and hostility in healthy subjects. The American Journal of Cardiology, 74(3), 298-300. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181c8a529

Smith, T. W. (1992). Hostility and Health: Current status of a psychosomatic hypothesis. Health Psychology, 11(3), 139-150. doi: 10.1037//0278-6133.11.3.139

Smith, T. W., & Gallo, L. C. (1999). Hostility and cardiovascular reactivity during marital interaction. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61(4), 436-445. doi: 10.1097/00006842-199907000-00005

Tabachnick, B. G. & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics. California: Pearson.

Downloads

Published

2018-05-29

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2018): January-June, 2018

Section

Investigación empírica y análisis teórico

License

Those authors who have publications with the Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences of the Academic Unit of Legal and Social Sciences, accept the following terms:

a. The authors will retain their copyright and guarantee the journal the right to first publish their work, which will be simultaneously subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. which allows third parties to share the work as long as its author and his first publication are indicated this journal.

b. Authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the version of the published work (e.g., deposit it in an institutional telematic archive or publish it in a monographic volume) provided that the initial publication in this journal is indicated.

C. Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work through personal communication (e.g. colleagues) before and during the submission process, for purposes of feedback or enrichment of the work, which can produce interesting exchanges