Influence of Culture on Cardiovascular Response to Anger Provocation

1
Influence of Culture on Cardiovascular Response
to Anger Provocation

• Jeremy C. Anderson, Ph.D.

2
The Western View

• There is an historical, widely-held belief that
  inhibiting emotional expression is stressful,
  unhealthy

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Stress Response Illness

• The stress response involves a departure from
  homeostasis
• Prolonged departure most harmful

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Cultural Factors

• The Markus Kitayama (1991) model
• Predict that anger expression less important for
  interdependent selves

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Premise 1

• For Westerners, emotion is an internal experience
  with a mandate to be expressed overtly. Because
  few situations allow expression, leads to greater
  cognitive demand, greater arousal

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Premise 2

• For Easterners, emotion experience and expression
  tied more closely to situational demands. Not
  necessary to express anger. No additional
  arousal, faster recovery

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3 Studies
Study 1 Do different cultural groups have
different preferred responses to anger?
Study 2 How robust are the differences?

• Study 3 Does preferred anger response influence
  cardiovascular stress recovery?

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Study 1 Results

• First, did groups interpret Anger Scenarios
  Questionnaire (ASQ) items similarly?
• Although English group gave higher anger
  intensity ratings, for vast majority of items,
  magnitude of ratings about group mean not
  different
• Therefore, groups probably interpreted items
  similarly

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ASQ example question

• 37 You have a major class assignment, which
  must be done in a group. Your group members
  divide up the work on the assignment evenly. The
  day before the deadline, a fellow group member
  informs you and the rest of the group that he/she
  did not do his/her part. You know that it is now
  too late to complete the project and you and all
  the others will now miss out on at least 30 of
  the total class mark.

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You would

• a) tell that group member how angry you are and
  kick them out of the group (expression)
• b) despite feeling really angry with the person,
  try not to show it and at least get along while
  the group is together (suppression)
• c) think about how at least the rest of you did
  your work so its not a total loss (distraction)
• d) consider that perhaps there were some
  exceptional circumstances that caused the member
  to not complete his task (reappraisal)

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Study 1 Results (contd)

• English group prefer expression, not distraction
• Cantonese group prefer distraction, reappraisal,
  not expression

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Study 1 Results (contd)

• Relationship between acculturation and self
  construal (SC)
• Cantonese group, ? Heritage culture ?
  Independent SC.

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Study 1 Results (contd)

• Relationship between SC and preferred anger
  strategy
• English group, ? Independent SC ? suppression,
  ? distraction
• Cantonese group, ? Independent SC ? distraction
• Overall, ? Interdependent SC ? expression, ?
  Independent SC ? suppression

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What about biculturals? Study 2

• Same sample and analyses as Study 1, without
  excluding Bicultural Chinese.

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Study 2 Results

• Adding Biculturals does not change ASQ results
• The pattern of anger intensity ratings did not
  change significantly, vast majority of items
  interpreted similarly between groups.

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Study 2 Results (contd)

• Results pretty much the same as with Study 1

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To Summarize
Study 1 Study 2
English and Cantonese groups report different
preferred response to anger
Preferred response linked to self-construal
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Study 3 Hypothesis

• Given an anger-provoking stimulus, Westerners,
  but not Easterners, will show prolonged
  cardiovascular response, if required to inhibit
  anger expression

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Lab Study

• blood pressure (BP) heart rate (HR) measured at
  baseline, task recovery.
• Task is Mental Arithmetic
• Participants either may express or must inhibit
  emotion

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Study 3 Results

• Did the task provoke subjective anger?
• Was that arousal similar between cultural groups?

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Study 3 Results

• Subjective recovery
• Groups not different except for frustration, and
  only in non-expression condition
• Of note, this is opposite to study hypotheses!

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Cardiovascular reactivity
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Systolic BP (SBP) Recovery
Trend Analysis Time ? Language quadratic trend, F
(1, 106) 7.2, p .009, ?P2 .06
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SBP Recovery
Trend Analysis Time ? Condition linear trend, F
(1, 106) 4.3, p .04, ?P2 .04
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Diastolic BP (DBP) Recovery
Trend Analysis Near-significant Time ? Condition
quadratic trend, F (1, 106) 3.4, p .067, ?P2
.03 (contrary to hypotheses)
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What does all this mean?

• For SBP, the Cantonese group showed a steeper
  recovery slope than the English group.
• The Time ? Condition effects dont mean that the
  expression manipulation affected recoveryall the
  action resulted from different task levels, not
  recovery levels

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Test of the model

• From Matsumoto (1999), p. 291

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Acculturation Self-construal

• English and Cantonese comparison of VIA and SCS
  subscale scores

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VIA and SCS correlations

• ? Heritage ? Interdependent SC
• ? Mainstream ? Independent SC

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SCS and SBP correlations

• Independent SC ? SBP at 2 min. and 4 min.
  post-task
• Those who score high in independent self
  construal tend to also have higher SBP at those
  time points (i.e., slower recovery)

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Summary
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Conclusions

• Culture background influences preferred anger
  strategy, possibly mediated by self-construal
• Cultural background influences physiological
  recovery from anger, arguably mediated by anger
  strategy
• Thus, anger expression not needed for quick
  recovery, cardiovascular healthjust dont
  suppress it!

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Acknowledgements

• Supervisor
• Dr. Wolfgang Linden
• Lab coordinator
• Ms. Jocelyn Leclerc
• Lab volunteers
• Daniel, Raymond, Annie, Melissa, Thomas
• Overseas Statistics Consultant
• Dr. Darcy Hallett