Abstract
Effects of frustration and/or harassment in the emotional modulation of Cardiac Defense Response. This study examines the emotional modulation of the Cardiac Defense Response (CDR) under conditions of harassment and/or frustration. The heart rate, and the systolic and diastolic blood pressure patterns were recorded in 79 women and 26 men in response to three presentations of an intense acoustic stimulus. The CDR test was performed after two tasks in which a negative emotional state was experimentally induced by frustration and/or harassment. The experimental conditions of the study were: control (C), harassment (H), frustration (F), and frustration+harassment (F+H). The results showed: (1) an enhancement of the second accelerative component of the CDR in the group of frustrated men, and (2) a lower habituation of the blood pressure levels in the first components of the CDR in conditions of frustration+harassment. These results support the idea that aversive reflexes are enhanced in negative emotional states.
