Repressive coping and cardiovascular reactivity to novel and recurrent stress

Siobhán Howard, Lynn B. Myers, Brian M. Hughes

Repressors tend to report less negative emotion and to describe challenges as less stressful, yet tend to exhibit higher rates of cardiovascular disease. While repressive coping has been shown to be associated with exaggerated physiological reactivity to novel stress, we sought to establish if elevated responses persisted across repeated exposure. In a sample of 86 healthy female adults, a verbal-autonomic response dissociation index of repressive coping was computed. Participants were exposed to two consecutive stress tasks, with analyses based on comparisons of consecutive stress responses. ANCOVA demonstrated significant differences across the study on diastolic blood pressure and cardiac output, as a function of repressive coping. Repressors showed elevated reactions to both stress tasks; however, cardiac output responses to the second task were more muted indicating that repressive coping was associated with successful adaptation to recurrent stress. Nevertheless, repressive copers maintained an exaggerated cardiovascular responses to recurrent stress. The present study identifies that repressive coping may be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease development through elevated cardiovascular reactions to both novel and recurrent stress.