Cerebral laterality, repressive coping, autonomic arousal, and human bonding

Abstract

Jim Henry wrote extensively about emotional expressive styles, such as alexithymia which is characterized by reduced awareness of one's own or others' feelings and emotions, and their relation to cerebral hemispheric asymmetries. The repressive coping style is a stable individual characteristic, which is marked by reduced and minimized reports of stress coupled with higher levels of autonomic, somatic, and behavioural responsivity. The apparent dissociation between subjective and physiological response may be associated with a functional disconnection between the two cerebral hemispheres and with greater cerebral lateralization. To test this hypothesis, we reexamined data from a study in which emotional and neutral slides were presented unilaterally to the left and right hemisphere. Exposure duration was 200 ms. Subjects were divided into four different coping styles based on their defensiveness and anxiety scores. Repressive copers were the only group to show a significant cardiac response (heart rate deceleration) to emotional material when it was presented to the right but not to the left hemisphere. These findings and the fact that repressive copers have a high need for social approval support Henry's views about the role of the right hemisphere in affiliation and human bonding.