Cardiovascular responses to stress: 

Psychological factors influencing reaction and adaptation 

​

Exaggerated cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress have a negative impact on health. Research within this sphere operates within the cardiovascular reactivity hypothesis which posits that prolonged or exaggerated blood pressure and heart rate reactions to psychological stress creates a strain on the cardiovascular system that in turn, leads to the development of disease. Recently, it has become clear that it is abnormal reactions (both exaggerated and blunted) that are associated with poor health, with elevated responses associated with cardiovascular disease, and blunted reactions associated with non-cardiovascular health outcomes. This identifies the need to consider cardiovascular responses to stress on a continuum when examining the health-damaging role of physiological reactions to psychological stimuli. This presentation examines a body of work that has investigated how psychosocial factors impact cardiovascular reactions to novel stress, as well as the person’s ability to adapt to recurrent stress. Our work shows that: 1) personality factors involving the trait of neuroticism show consistent associations with blunted cardiovascular reactions to stress in healthy samples; 2) these blunted cardiovascular reactions to stress are often underpinned by increased activity in the vasculature; and 3) this vascular response pattern may be one mechanism through which psychological factors come to be associated with adverse health. Together, this body of work identifies how personality traits are an important moderating factor to consider in examining ways to prevent, and treat, cardiovascular disease.