Title: Influence of Culture on Cardiovascular Response to Anger Provocation
1Influence of Culture on Cardiovascular Response
to Anger Provocation
- Jeremy C. Anderson, Ph.D.
2The Western View
- There is an historical, widely-held belief that
inhibiting emotional expression is stressful,
unhealthy
3Stress Response Illness
- The stress response involves a departure from
homeostasis - Prolonged departure most harmful
4Cultural Factors
- The Markus Kitayama (1991) model
- Predict that anger expression less important for
interdependent selves
5Premise 1
- For Westerners, emotion is an internal experience
with a mandate to be expressed overtly. Because
few situations allow expression, leads to greater
cognitive demand, greater arousal
6Premise 2
- For Easterners, emotion experience and expression
tied more closely to situational demands. Not
necessary to express anger. No additional
arousal, faster recovery
73 Studies
Study 1 Do different cultural groups have
different preferred responses to anger?
Study 2 How robust are the differences?
- Study 3 Does preferred anger response influence
cardiovascular stress recovery?
8Study 1 Results
- First, did groups interpret Anger Scenarios
Questionnaire (ASQ) items similarly? - Although English group gave higher anger
intensity ratings, for vast majority of items,
magnitude of ratings about group mean not
different - Therefore, groups probably interpreted items
similarly
9ASQ example question
- 37 You have a major class assignment, which
must be done in a group. Your group members
divide up the work on the assignment evenly. The
day before the deadline, a fellow group member
informs you and the rest of the group that he/she
did not do his/her part. You know that it is now
too late to complete the project and you and all
the others will now miss out on at least 30 of
the total class mark.
10You would
- a) tell that group member how angry you are and
kick them out of the group (expression) - b) despite feeling really angry with the person,
try not to show it and at least get along while
the group is together (suppression) - c) think about how at least the rest of you did
your work so its not a total loss (distraction) - d) consider that perhaps there were some
exceptional circumstances that caused the member
to not complete his task (reappraisal)
11Study 1 Results (contd)
- English group prefer expression, not distraction
- Cantonese group prefer distraction, reappraisal,
not expression
12Study 1 Results (contd)
- Relationship between acculturation and self
construal (SC) - Cantonese group, ? Heritage culture ?
Independent SC.
13Study 1 Results (contd)
- Relationship between SC and preferred anger
strategy - English group, ? Independent SC ? suppression,
? distraction - Cantonese group, ? Independent SC ? distraction
- Overall, ? Interdependent SC ? expression, ?
Independent SC ? suppression
14What about biculturals? Study 2
- Same sample and analyses as Study 1, without
excluding Bicultural Chinese.
15Study 2 Results
- Adding Biculturals does not change ASQ results
- The pattern of anger intensity ratings did not
change significantly, vast majority of items
interpreted similarly between groups.
16Study 2 Results (contd)
- Results pretty much the same as with Study 1
17To Summarize
Study 1 Study 2
English and Cantonese groups report different
preferred response to anger
Preferred response linked to self-construal
18Study 3 Hypothesis
- Given an anger-provoking stimulus, Westerners,
but not Easterners, will show prolonged
cardiovascular response, if required to inhibit
anger expression
19Lab Study
- blood pressure (BP) heart rate (HR) measured at
baseline, task recovery. - Task is Mental Arithmetic
- Participants either may express or must inhibit
emotion
20Study 3 Results
- Did the task provoke subjective anger?
- Was that arousal similar between cultural groups?
21Study 3 Results
- Subjective recovery
- Groups not different except for frustration, and
only in non-expression condition - Of note, this is opposite to study hypotheses!
22Cardiovascular reactivity
23Systolic BP (SBP) Recovery
Trend Analysis Time ? Language quadratic trend, F
(1, 106) 7.2, p .009, ?P2 .06
24SBP Recovery
Trend Analysis Time ? Condition linear trend, F
(1, 106) 4.3, p .04, ?P2 .04
25Diastolic BP (DBP) Recovery
Trend Analysis Near-significant Time ? Condition
quadratic trend, F (1, 106) 3.4, p .067, ?P2
.03 (contrary to hypotheses)
26What does all this mean?
- For SBP, the Cantonese group showed a steeper
recovery slope than the English group. - The Time ? Condition effects dont mean that the
expression manipulation affected recoveryall the
action resulted from different task levels, not
recovery levels
27Test of the model
- From Matsumoto (1999), p. 291
28Acculturation Self-construal
- English and Cantonese comparison of VIA and SCS
subscale scores
29VIA and SCS correlations
- ? Heritage ? Interdependent SC
- ? Mainstream ? Independent SC
30SCS and SBP correlations
- Independent SC ? SBP at 2 min. and 4 min.
post-task - Those who score high in independent self
construal tend to also have higher SBP at those
time points (i.e., slower recovery)
31Summary
32Conclusions
- Culture background influences preferred anger
strategy, possibly mediated by self-construal - Cultural background influences physiological
recovery from anger, arguably mediated by anger
strategy - Thus, anger expression not needed for quick
recovery, cardiovascular healthjust dont
suppress it!
33Acknowledgements
- Supervisor
- Dr. Wolfgang Linden
- Lab coordinator
- Ms. Jocelyn Leclerc
- Lab volunteers
- Daniel, Raymond, Annie, Melissa, Thomas
- Overseas Statistics Consultant
- Dr. Darcy Hallett