Gender differences in the association between cardiovascular reactivity and aggressive conduct

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Abstract

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the association between cardiovascular reactivity to provocation and physically and relationally aggressive conduct. Blood pressure and heart rate were assessed among seventy-seven 5th-grade participants during a period of rest and while discussing a relational provocation. In addition, teachers reported on participants' physically and relationally aggressive behavior. Results provided support for the hypothesis that heightened cardiac reactivity to provocation would be associated with relational forms of aggression among girls. In contrast, for boys, lower cardiac reactivity was associated with physical aggression. These results suggest that the association between cardiovascular reactivity and aggression differs for males and females and that reactivity following relational provocation may be an especially important predictor of relational aggression among girls. Implications for interventions among aggressive children are discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

Ninety-five 5th grade students were recruited from a total of 8 classrooms in two suburban, Midwestern schools. Of these, 18 participants were excluded from analyses because they did not complete the interview or the baseline assessments (11 did not complete the interview due to language difficulties or refusal to answer questions; baseline physiological measures following the interview were not assessed for 5 participants due to experimenter error and 2 participants due to equipment

Gender differences in physiological reactivity to relational stress

The first goal of the present paper was to assess cardiovascular reactivity to the SCI. Participants were expected to exhibit increases in BP and HR during the interview, and it was hypothesized that these increases would be greatest for girls. To examine whether children exhibit heightened cardiac arousal while discussing relational provocation and to explore whether this effect was moderated by gender, three repeated measures analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) analyses for systolic BP, diastolic

Discussion

The goal of this study was to explore the association between cardiovascular reactivity while recounting an experience of relational provocation and physical and relational aggression. Relational provocations were chosen in the present investigation to allow for a more sensitive test of the association between cardiac reactivity and aggression among girls. Consistent with previous work, participants exhibited heightened cardiovascular arousal (i.e., HR, systolic BP, and diastolic BP) while

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    This paper is based on a Ph.D dissertation of the first author at the University of Minnesota. Work was supported by an NIMH predoctoral traineeship and a small grant award from the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota. We would like to thank the Edina and Minnetonka principals, students, and teachers for their participation in this research project. We would also like to thank the undergraduate research assistants on the Friends and Health project for their time and hard work in collecting and entering data. Special thanks to Kathleen E. Woods for her collaboration in data collection.

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