Effects of Conflict on the Cardiovascular System
Although various causes of coronary heart disease exist, the way that people respond to interpersonal conflict has now been clearly identified as one of those causes of heart disease for both clinical and normal populations (Bleil, McCaf- fery, Muldoon, Sutton-Tyrrell, & Manuck, 2004; Suarez, 2004).
For example, the way people manage hostility and anger appears to affect how fatal is coronary artery disease (CAD). Boyle and colleagues (2004) followed patients with CAD for an average of 15 years. They found that CAD patients who responded to others with hostility (as measured by a combination of cynicism, hostile attribution, hostile feelings, and aggressiveness) were much more likely to die than were CAD patients who did not respond with hostile tactics. Similarly, Bleil and colleagues (2004) found that the tendency to react in anger and the aggressive expression of hostility increased people’s levels of carotid artery atherosclerosis (lesions in arteries involving the brain), a leading cause of stroke, heart attacks, and other heart diseases. Importantly, increases in atherosclerosis due to anger and hostility were found after controlling for other physical risk factors, such as age, weight, and amount of smoking. These findings indicate that the competitive expression of anger directly increases people’s atherosclerosis. It has been said that smoking a cigarette reduces one’s life expectancy by 7—11 minutes; in the same way, each competitive conflict strategy reduces one’s life expectancy, depending on how much anger and hostility you show.Even healthy people who react with hostility experience negative health consequences in terms of cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) (i.e., the extent to which the heart works harder and takes longer to recover). Suarez and colleagues (1993, 1998) examined how women and men reacted to another person’s rude behavior.
They divided their samples into groups who self-reported high versus low hostility. Then they randomly assigned these people into no harassment versus high harassment groups (where high harassment involved a technician criticizing their performance on a task, and no harassment involved no criticism). Results revealed that highly hostile people in the harassment condition had significant increases in their cardiovascular reactivity (in terms of heart rate, forearm blood flow, and blood pressure), as well as significant increases in their own subjective experience of anger. These effects did not occur for the other groups. Accordingly, this study shows that one’s predisposition to encounter other people with anger can damage the individual heart.Likewise, Siegman and Snow (1997) examined how one’s own expression of anger affected cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). In that study, participants recalled recent anger-producing events and were assigned to one of three conditions— no expression of anger (recall experience only), outward expression of anger (speaking loud and fast), or incongruous expression of anger (speaking soft and slow). CVR was higher in the outward expression condition that either the experience only or incongruous condition. In addition, self-rated anger was highest in the outward expression condition (speaking loud and fast when angry) and was lowest in the incongruous condition. Siegman and Snow concluded, “It is the combination or interaction of anger and loud and rapid speech that produces exceedingly high CVR levels” (p. 39). In brief, how you communicate nonverbally when angry also affects your heart.