Rate, and Blood Pressure Differences during Cognitive and Cold Pain Stressors

Repressors, defined as individuals possessing an increased cortical sensitivity to anxiety-provoking stimuli combined with the tendency to avoid such stimuli, may be differentiated from lowand high-anxious individuals. This study investigated behavioral performance, electrophysiological reactivity (EEG), and cardiovascular reactivity (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) in three major coping style groups (repressors, low-anxious, and high-anxious) during low and high stressful conditions. Conditions were rest, cognitive stress (computerized Stroop Interference Task, with and without negative emotional stimuli), and physiological stress (cool water vs. ice cold water left hand immersions). Participants were 49 healthy, right handed university undergraduate women, chosen with Weinberger et al.’s (1979) criteria according to their differentially extreme scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale and the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Scale. Although mixed, findings supported the proposal that these three groups utilize differential attentional strategies and interpretive biases during both neutral and negative stimuli. In the word interference Stroop condition, reaction times (RTs) were longer for negative than neutral stimuli. Unexpected RT differences occurred in low and high error groups across the three coping styles. High error scoring repressors had longer RTs than low error/low-anxious; highanxious/low error and high-anxious/high error groups did not differ. Repressors