Michelle Skinner

Age-Related Differences in Ambulatory Blood Pressure During Daily Stress: Evidence for Greater Blood Pressure Reactivity With Age

Prior research on age and emotions has found that older adults may show better physiological regulation to stressful stimuli than do younger adults. However, the stress reactivity literature has shown that age is associated with higher cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stress (J. R. Jennings et al., 1997). The authors investigated these conflicting findings further by examining daily ambulatory blood pressure in 428 middle-aged to older adults. Consistent with the age and reactivity literature, relatively old individuals showed significantly greater increases in ambulatory diastolic blood pressure compared with younger individuals when dealing with daily stressors. However, results also revealed that relatively old individuals reported less of an increase in negative affect during daily stress compared with their younger counterparts. The results of this study are consistent with the age-related increase in cardiovascular risk but highlight the complex links between stress and different facets of the aging process.

Associations of self-reports versus spouse ratings of negative affectivity, dominance, and affiliation with coronary artery disease: where should we look and who should we ask when studying personality and health?

OBJECTIVE Aspects of negative affect and social behavior studied as risk factors for coronary heart disease are usually examined separately and through self-reports. Using structural models of these personality domains, we tested associations of self-reports and spouse ratings of anxiety, depressive symptoms, anger, affiliation and dominance with coronary artery disease (CAD). DESIGN In 154 healthy older couples, the authors tested cross-sectional associations with CAD of three facets of negative affectivity and two dimensions of the Interpersonal Circumplex, (IPC) using scales derived from the NEO-PI-R. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES CAD was quantified as Agatston scores from CT scans of coronary artery calcification (CAC). RESULTS Self-reports were generally unrelated to CAC, whereas spouse ratings were consistently associated, largely independent of potential confounds. When considered simultaneously, anxiety and anger were related to CAC but depression was not. When considered together, both dominance and (low) affiliation were related to CAC. CONCLUSIONS Structural models of negative affectivity and social behavior can facilitate integrative study of psychosocial risk factors. Further, self-report measures of these traits might under-estimate related CHD risk.

Conflict and collaboration in middle-aged and older couples: II. Cardiovascular reactivity during marital interaction.

Marital strain confers risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), perhaps though cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stressful marital interactions. CVR to marital stressors may differ between middle-age and older adults, and types of marital interactions that evoke CVR may also differ across these age groups, as relationship contexts and stressors differ with age. The authors examined cardiovascular responses to a marital conflict discussion and collaborative problem solving in 300 middle-aged and older married couples. Marital conflict evoked greater increases in blood pressure, cardiac output, and cardiac sympathetic activation than did collaboration. Older couples displayed smaller heart rate responses to conflict than did middle-aged couples but larger blood pressure responses to collaboration-especially in older men. These effects were maintained during a posttask recovery period. Women did not display greater CVR than men on any measure or in either interaction context, though they did display greater parasympathetic withdrawal. CVR to marital conflict could contribute to the association of marital strain with CVD for middle-aged and older men and women, but other age-related marital contexts (e.g., collaboration among older couples) may also contribute to this mechanism.

Financial stress predictors and the emotional and physical health of chronic pain patients

This study sought to examine the effects of weekly changes in financial stressors on physical and mental health of arthritis patients. Weekly telephone interviews provided data on health symptoms, financial stressors, interpersonal stress, negative affect, and average pain for arthritis patients and healthy individuals. Multilevel analyses revealed that fluctuations in financial stress were associated with greater health complaints and negative affect, but not more pain for arthritis patients. An interaction between interpersonal stress and financial stress was observed suchthat weeks of increased interpersonal stress, with increased financial stress, were associated with more health symptoms especially during weeks of increased pain. These findings suggest that financial stress contributes to both physical and mental health and appears important for arthritis patients.

Perceptions of the Cognitive Compensation and Interpersonal Enjoyment Functions of Collaboration Among Middle-Aged and Older Married Couples

Perceptions of cognitive compensation and interpersonal enjoyment of collaboration were examined in three hundred middle-aged and older couples who completed measures of perceptions of collaboration, cognitive ability, marital satisfaction, an errand task and judged their spouses affiliation. Older adults (especially men) endorsed cognitive compensation and interpersonal enjoyment and reported using collaboration more frequently than middle-aged adults. Greater need for cognitive compensation was related to lower cognitive ability only for older wives. Greater marital satisfaction was associated with greater interpersonal enjoyment. These two functions related to reports of more frequent use of collaboration and perceptions of spousal affiliation in a collaborative task.