Emotional and cardiovascular responses to adults' angry behavior and to challenging tasks in children of hypertensive and normotensive parents

Abstract

Cardiovascular, overt-motor, and verbal-reported responses to interadult emotional expressions, including anger, and to challenging task situations were examined in a sample of 49 10-14-year-old children of hypertensive (EH) and normotensive parents (NT). Sons of EH parents showed greater systolic blood pressure reactivity to interadult anger and to the digit span task than sons of NT parents. A consistent pattern was not found for girls. Marital distress and overt maternal anger expression predicted verbal-reported and overt-motor responses to interadult anger. Family history of EH and sex did not predict these responses. Implications include (a) heightened systolic blood pressure response to stress may be found in sons of EH parents before they are diagnosed to have EH disorders, (b) relations between family history of EH and cardiovascular response may be sex moderated, and (c) vulnerability to stress may be related to specific familial histories and backgrounds.