Biomedical subjects

T L Newton

Publications and source records attributed to T L Newton.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Cardiovascular correlates of behavioral dominance and hostility during dyadic interaction.

The present study examined cardiovascular correlates of expression of, and exposure to, naturally occurring behavioral dominance and hostility during dyadic social interaction. Unacquainted men and women undergraduates participated in three mixed-gender interactions with the same partner while their blood pressure and heart rate were assessed. Videotaped records of the interactions were coded for behavioral dominance and hostility. Exposure effects were apparent for women's systolic blood pressure and men's heart rate, with significantly greater reactivity shown by participants whose partners exhibited more dominance or hostility, respectively. Also, women's expression of dominance was positively and significantly associated with their heart rate reactivity. In addition to providing further evidence that emotion-related features of the social environment contribute to cardiovascular reactivity, these results illustrate that dominance merits attention as a correlate of cardiac stress reactivity, independent of hostility.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Marriage and health: his and hers.

This review focuses on the pathway leading from the marital relationship to physical health. Evidence from 64 articles published in the past decade, particularly marital interaction studies, suggests that marital functioning is consequential for health; negative dimensions of marital functioning have indirect influences on health outcomes through depression and health habits, and direct influences on cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, neurosensory, and other physiological mechanisms. Moreover, individual difference variables such as trait hostility augment the impact of marital processes on biological systems. Emerging themes in the past decade include the importance of differentiating positive and negative dimensions of marital functioning, the explanatory power of behavioral data, and gender differences in the pathways from the marital relationship to physiological functioning. Contemporary models of gender that emphasize self-processes, traits, and roles furnish alternative perspectives on the differential costs and benefits of marriage for men's and women's health.

Depression↗

PubMed1999

Dominance, gender, and cardiovascular reactivity during social interaction.

Associations between trait dominance and cardiovascular reactivity were examined in previously unacquainted healthy men and women. Subjects participated in three mixed-gender dyadic interactions with the same partner while their cardiovascular responses were assessed. Among men, but not women, trait dominance was positively and significantly associated with systolic blood pressure reactivity. For men and women, diastolic blood pressure reactivity was positively and significantly associated with trait dominance while participants prepared to interact and with partner's trait dominance while they interacted. All effects held after controlling for trait hostility. Dominance merits attention as a correlate of cardiovascular reactivity, a finding that parallels emerging patterns in the cardiovascular disease literature. Gender and gender-related social factors as potential moderators of this relationship are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Hostility and erosion of marital quality during early marriage.

We examined the association between hostility and longitudinal changes in marital quality in a sample of 53 newlywed couples who were in their first marriages and were without children. Spouses' reports of marital quality were assessed initially at an average of 5 months into marriage and, thereafter, at three follow-up points approximately 1, 2, and 3 years subsequent to the date of marriage. Individual growth models were computed to assess the rate of change of marital quality. Hostility among husbands was significantly associated with linear decreases in their own, and their wives', reports of marital quality, even after controlling for the passage of time and the correlated variable of neuroticism. Results are consistent with the psychosocial vulnerability model of hostility and illness (Smith, Health Psychol. 11: 139-150, 1992), which posits that associations between hostility and heightened risk for morbidity and mortality are partially mediated by poor-quality relationships that develop as a consequence of the abrasive interpersonal properties of hostility.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Repressive coping and verbal-autonomic response dissociation: the influence of social context.

This study examined whether verbal-autonomic response dissociation in repressive copers is potentiated by conditions that enhance social evaluative concerns. Women classified as repressive, low-anxious, or high-anxious gave a self-disclosing speech in either a private condition (a single researcher observed) or a public condition (3 researchers ostensibly observed). Repressors exhibited heart rate elevations that were greater in magnitude than their self-reports of negative affect, but only in the public condition. High-anxious Ss in both conditions showed an opposite pattern of verbal-autonomic dissociation in which self-reported negative affect exceeded cardiac response. Low-anxious Ss in both conditions showed little responsivity in either channel. Results are interpreted within a self-regulatory framework in which differences in self-concept in the domain of emotionality predispose repressive and high-anxious individuals to engage in contrasting, emotion-focused coping styles.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Alexithymia and repression: contrasting emotion-focused coping styles.

A number of conceptually similar emotion-focused coping styles have been related to physical well-being. We assessed the relationship between two of these constructs, alexithymia and repressive coping, on the basis of both psychometric and psychophysiological comparisons. Questionnaires were used to classify 86 healthy female subjects as low anxious, high anxious, or repressors. These subjects then completed a self-report measure of alexithymia and participated in a stressful laboratory task in which they delivered a self-disclosing speech. Emotional response patterning was assessed by comparing self-reported negative affect to heart rate responses elicited during the stressful speech task. Results indicated that the alexithymia scores of high anxious subjects were significantly greater than those of repressors. Consistent with the psychometric data, high alexithymics exhibited an emotional response pattern characteristic of high anxious subjects (self-reported negative affect greater than heart rate), whereas low alexithymics exhibited a response pattern characteristic of repressors (heart rate greater than self-reported negative affect). The results suggest that alexithymia and repressive coping are quite distinct, with repression being more similar to low alexithymia than to high alexithymia.

Adaptation, Psychological↗