Abstract
Conflictual role-play scenarios have been used to model brief interpersonal interaction and to elicit cardiovascular reactivity in the laboratory. Here we discuss data suggesting that role-played interactions constitute an ecologically valid laboratory task that may improve laboratory-to-field generalization of cardiovascular response. Specifically, our research indicates that young adults perceive the stress associated with role-play scenarios as similar to that encountered in everyday life. Furthermore, these stress appraisals moderate cardiovascular response to role-play in men. We also find that a social stressor (i.e. speech task) is perceived as significantly more similar to a real-life stressor as compared to other standard laboratory tasks. We propose that particular constellations of cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to laboratory-based social stressors, such as role-played interaction, may elicit different patterns of hemodynamic response. Further understanding of interrelations among cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological response patterns may assist in the study of cardiovascular reactivity as a potential mechanism linking personality factors and the development of cardiovascular disease.
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Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by the University of Maryland Graduate School's Designated Research Initiative Fund.
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Waldstein, S.R., Neumann, S.A., Burns, H.O. et al. Role-played interpersonal interaction: Ecological validity and cardiovascular reactivity. ann. behav. med. 20, 302–309 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02886379
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02886379