Ironic hostility presents a potential route to cardiovascular disease

According to a study led by Baylor University, ironic hostility is a potential route to cardiovascular disease by blocking a healthy response to stress over time.

Hostility is generally associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, this study investigated three types of hostility: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive, to see if risk factors could be better predicted. Ironic hostility poses the greatest risk based on the stress response, SurveyWas published in the journal Psychophysiology..

“Cynical hostility is more cognitive and consists of negative beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes about other people’s motives, intentions, and credibility,” said the lead author. Alexandra T. TyraHe holds a PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from Baylor University. “It can be seen as suspicion, lack of trust, or a cynical belief in others.

“These findings appear to be highly relevant to today’s political and health conditions. The strong tendency to engage in ironic hostility is not only for short-term stress responses, but also for long-term health. Has also revealed that it can be harmful, “Tyla said.

In contrast to ironic hostility, chronic anger is considered emotional hostility, and verbal and physical aggression is considered behavioral hostility.

“The increased risk of hostility is likely due to increased physiological arousal to psychological stress, which can strain the cardiovascular system over time,” Tyra said. .. “But it was more similar to the real situation and needed studies to examine these physiological responses across multiple stress exposures in order to assess adaptation over time.”

A healthy cardiovascular response to recurrent stress consists of increased arousal to initial stress exposure (sometimes called “fight or flight”) and decreases with subsequent exposure to the same stressor.

“In essence, repeated exposure to the same thing loses its novelty and isn’t as responsive as it was at the beginning,” Tyra said. “This is a healthy response, but our research shows that a high tendency for ironic hostility can prevent or inhibit the decline in this response over time.

“This is unhealthy because it strains the cardiovascular system over time,” says Tyra.

For a study consisting of a stress test of 196 participants, the researchers analyzed data collected by the Carnegie Mellon University Institute for Stress, Immunity, and Disease Studies.

Participants’ heart rate and blood pressure were recorded, each consisting of a 20-minute baseline and a 15-minute psychological stress test, through two lab sessions approximately every 7 weeks.

Participants also completed a standard psychological measure to measure personality and temperament, especially the degree of hostility that represents an individual’s temperament for irony and chronic hatred.

In the psychological stress part of the study, participants were given 5 minutes to make a speech to protect themselves from traffic violations or suspected shoplifting violations and 5 minutes to give a speech. .. They were told that their speech was recorded on video and evaluated.

“These social and self-assessment methods are designed to increase the experience of stress and have been validated in previous studies,” Tyla said.

Participants were then asked to perform a 5-minute mental arithmetic test, which varied slightly from visit to visit. Heart rate and blood pressure were recorded every 2 minutes during each stage of the stress test (preparation for speech, childbirth, mental arithmetic).

Participants also responded to a 20-item test to measure hostile emotional, behavioral, and cognitive factors.

An example of an emotional element of anger or irritation is that “people often disappoint me.” An example of a behavioral element (aggression) is “defeating a scammer in your game is certainly fun”. Finally, the item of the cognitive element (sarcastic) example is “I think most people will lie to move on.”

The study did not find that emotional and behavioral hostility was associated with stress responses, Tyra said.

“This does not mean that emotional and behavioral hostility is not bad for you, but that it can affect your health and well-being in other ways.” She said.

A future study that will be useful is to look at lifelong ironic hostility and its health effects. Age of heart attack, etc. “

“I hope this study raises awareness of the potential health effects of sarcasm,” she said. “The next time someone thinks of a negative idea about the motives, intentions, or credibility of a best friend, colleague, or even a politician, they think twice about being actively involved in that idea.”

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* This study was funded by the National Institute of Health. Collaborators included Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and the National University of Ireland in Galway, Ireland.