Does cardiovascular reactivity during speech reflect self-construction processes?

Abstract

Substantial empirical research has been undertaken on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). however interpretation of this research is hampered by a lack of theoretical frameworks. This paper develops a framework initially stimulated by evidence demonstrating that the cardiovascular system increases in activity during communication, and that the extent of this activation depends upon numerous and diverse psychosocial factors. We attempt to account for this phenomenon using merit post-structuralist ideas concerning the constructive nature of language and its centrality to an individual's sense of self. Our theoretical framework proposes that the CVR exhibited during language use is explicable in terms of self-construction - From this analysis we hypothesised that CVR would differ across conversations about private self. public self and non-self topics, and that these differences would depend upon people's speaking histories. We found that the blood pressure and heart rate of 102 women was most reactive when they talked in a laboratory with a stranger about aspects of their private self, and least reactive during non-self talk, whilst their heart rate was most reactive during talk about their public self. Overall the results highlight the inextricable link between our inherent socialness and our cardiovascular systems.

SUMMARY

The explanatory scheme outlined here is an attempt to provide a social reconceptualisation of a phenomenon that is typically interpreted in individualistic psychophysiological terms, and which is consistent with the notion that repeated exposure to situations which provoke large haemodynamic changes may lead to CHD disease progression. The explanation draws heavily on post-structuralist ideas regarding language, and the social constructionist notion that engaging in language use is central to constructing and maintaining a sense of self. This sense of self is a central theoretical entity in our everyday lives, produced and maintained in our interactions with others. We argue that it is this centrality of self-construction that helps to explain the extraordinary consistency of elevated CVR in conversation. Further, we have noted the striking parallels between those features of conversations that make the self salient, and those that have been associated with elevated CVR. To examine it more explicitly, it needs to be tested empirically with new data, using explicitly derived operationalisations and hypotheses.     

The role of teammate relationships,communication and self-efficacy in predicting athlete flow experience

This study aimed at testing a structural model of athlete flow in a sample of South African students. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was implemented. Participants completed self-report measures at pre-arranged times that were in close proximity to the completion of athletic activity. Student athletes (n = 235) participating in South Africa's two major sports, football and rugby, were surveyed. The instruments utilised in this study included the Short Flow State Scale-2, the Questionnaire on Experience and Assessment of Work, and the Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale. The results indicated positive relationships between the variables and established predictor paths. Teammate relationships and self-efficacy were established to as the best predictors of flow experiences of athletes.     

Effect of Relaxation Therapy in Reducing Blood Pressure of Essential Hypertension Patients

The study investigated the effect of relaxation therapy on arterial blood pressure of Patients with essential hypertension. Ten known essential hypertension patients (males = 3; females = 7, age range 41–70, mean age 57.2 years, SD = 9.93 years) were sampled randomly from Medical outpatient department of the State owned University teaching Hospital in Ebonyi State South East, Nigeria. These Participants were exposed to 30 minutes relaxation therapy and their blood pressures were taken before and after the treatment. Using matched t test to compare baseline and post treatment scores, result showed that relaxation therapy progressively decreased both diastolic and systolic blood pressure readings of the Participants. The study concluded that Relaxation therapy can transiently lower the systolic and diastolic blood pressure.     

Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

A possible physiological correlate for mental flow

The relationship between mental flow and physiological coherence was investigated in three tasks. Coherence is a state defined by a particular pattern of low frequency heart rate variability (HRV), which has been related to optimal performance and positive mental states. Flow is a pleasurable performance-enhancing psychological state. In the first task, participants answered questionnaires. In the second, they played a coherence-inducing biofeedback game, and in a third, they played a flow-inducing videogame. HRV was used to measure coherence while flow was assessed using the Flow State Scales. The data revealed that coherence could be induced without flow and vice versa. More surprising, the correlations between flow and coherence were different in each of the tasks. We conclude that coherence and flow are discrete constructs despite their theoretical similarities.     

Moods and Quality of Life

In modern society, flow and stress are well-known terms in the theoretical discussions of the good life, subjective well-being and quality of life. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a phenomenological analysis of flow and stress experiences in everyday life. The analysis yielded a distinction between different phenomenological dimensions identified as arising in different combinations within concrete experience of flow and stress. These different dimensions were characterised by different feelings, different experiences of time and different experiences of the world. The results are discussed and interpreted in the light of Martin Heidegger's, Otto Friedrich Bollnow's and F.C.J. Buytendijk's theories of moods and feelings. Flow and stress experiences are phenomenologically interpreted as moods and classified as a modern version of basic polarities of moods as described by Bollnow and Buytendijk. Lastly, the concept of mood is emphasised as a specific entrance to the subjective and experienced dimensions involved in the complex concepts of quality of life, the good life and happiness.     

Validation of the Multidimensional Blood/Injury Phobia Inventory: Evidence for a Unitary Construct

The Multidimensional Blood/Injury Phobia Inventory (MBPI) was developed from a theoretical framework to characterize a broad range of feared stimuli and phobic reactions associated with this pathology. The MBPI consists of 40 items that cross 4 types of stimulus content (injections, hospitals, blood, injury), 5 types of phobic responses (fear, avoidance, worry, fainting, disgust), and a self versus other focus. This study reports on administration of the MBPI to 558 undergraduates, 9 of whom had blood/injury phobia. The instrument had a Cronbach's alpha of .91 and demonstrated good concurrent validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. One large factor emerged in an unrotated principal components analysis, suggesting that blood/injury phobia is a unitary psychometric construct. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a 6-factor solution defined by stimulus content domains and fainting, each of which may be important to consider clinically when assessing the unique concerns of treatment-seeking individuals.     

对肾移植输血问题的思考

就肾移植受者输血的几个问题进行了回顾和探讨。提出肾移植受者输血应该考虑的问题有：如何权衡输血对肾移植受者的有益作用与输血风险,输血医学的发展如何为肾移植提供更有力的保障,应该深入探讨输血有益于肾移植的机制,推进供者特异性输血在我国的应用。     

Blood pressure and heart rate responses to an intrusion on personal space

Abstract: Yaezawa and Yoshida's (1981 ) findings on the effects of an intrusion on personal space were reinvestigated. Thirty-five female students were confronted with the approach of a male stranger, and blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were monitored. Throughout the model's approach, HR showed a significant triphasic change (an initial decrease, a subsequent increase, and then a secondary decrease), whereas subjective feelings of anxiety and tension showed significant, gradual increases. These trends were similar to those of Yaezawa and Yoshida's . Nonetheless, their explanation that the triphasic change in HR reflected once hightened and then relieved tension, which was incongruent with the subjective ratings, seemed questionable. As the BP elevated to a moderate degree in spite of the modest HR changes, total peripheral resistance must have been increasing during the model's approach. Blood pressure elevations via this sort of hemodynamic pressor mechanisms have often been reported when a person can only tolerate passively during exposure to stress. This seems to be the case in an intrusion on personal space.     

A reflection on a humanistic approach to narrative inquiry into the lived experience of women casual academics

Qualitative research is said to add flesh to the bones of quantitative data, and narrative inquiry, more specifically, is described as emotionally comforting, reassuring and validating for participants who share their stories. But little is said of the impact of the flesh, bone and emotions of the narrative inquirer on the qualitative research process. This paper explores a humanistic approach to a narrative inquiry into the lived experience of women casual academics in Australian universities, and exposes the emotional and embodied labour involved in researching others’ stories. Through reflecting in and on her practice as a narrative inquirer, the author discusses how she was affectively and ideologically motivated to investigate the lives of women casual academics and demonstrates how her heart worked in conjunction with her head when ‘handling’ the narrative data. The author finally explores how reflecting on a humanistic approach to narrative research exposes that emotional and cognitive alignment can create research ‘flow’, and that fully embodied engagement with research aligns with ‘slow’ and feminist ‘in-the-making’ scholarship where journey and outcomes emerge and cannot be pre-determined.