Personality and Cardiovascular Stress Reactivity: A Comparison of the Cold Pressor and Mental Arithmetic Tasks

Abstract

Stress reactivity, defined as an exaggerated response to stressors and impaired poststressor recovery, significantly influences the connection between stress and health, particularly cardiovascular health. A wide body of literature has identified personality traits strongly associated with stress reactivity, namely trait neuroticism from the Five-Factor model of personality. Evidence suggests that individuals scoring highly in this personality construct are more likely to have exaggerated stress responses and experience more severe stress-related health problems. In the current study, participants (N = 700) completed an inventory of the Five- Factor model of personality along with medical questionnaires to assess eligibility for stress assessments. Eligible participants (N = 93) completed baseline electrocardiogram (ECG) and respiratory recordings. Participants then underwent continuous ECG/respiratory recording while completing two separate stress tasks: a mental stress task (MST) and a cold pressor task (CPT), each task followed by a second and third ECG/respiratory recording period. In light of the literature reviewed in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, I hypothesized that participants scoring more highly in trait neuroticism would exhibit decreased measures of vagally mediated heart rate variability (HRV) and increased measures of sympathetically mediated HRV during baseline and would exhibit increased stress responses to both stress tasks. Further, I hypothesized that the MST would induce greater stress responses than the CPT and that the task type would moderate the relationship between trait neuroticism and HRV measures of cardiovascular stress. Results revealed that there was no consistent relationship between baseline HRV and trait neuroticism, except for LF-HRV which was associated with greater neuroticism. Results also showed that there was a task difference such that LF-HRV was higher during the CPT compared to the MST. There was no moderation effect of the task type on the relationship between neuroticism and HRV. Notably, stress appraisal was associated with increases These results are discussed in terms of both the transactional model of stress and coping and the neurovisceral integation model.