Experimental manipulations of social status and stress-induced cardiovascular responses in high and low trait dominant men

The present study investigated the effect of a mismatch between trait dominance and induced status on cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from a dyadic interaction task. Eighty normotensive men characterized as either high or low in trait dominance engaged in a discussion requiring persuasive behavior either in the context of a high or low induced status position. The outcome of a rigged competition was used as a marker of status. Induced status was found to moderate cardiovascular recovery of dominance groups. High dominant individuals exhibited less complete recovery of diastolic blood pressure (DBP) when placed in a low compared to high status position, whereas recovery of low dominant individuals tended to show greater impairment in a high status position. Results for changes in emotional states also indicate a detrimental effect of incongruous status positions, particularly for high dominant individuals. Subjective experiences did not mediate cardiovascular effects, though.     

Rough approximation of pairwise comparisons described by multi‐attribute stochastic dominance

Given a finite set A of actions evaluated by a set of attributes, preferential information is considered in the form of a pairwise comparison table including pairs of actions from subset B⊂A described by stochastic dominance relations on particular attributes and a total order on the decision attribute. Using a rough sets approach for the analysis of the subset of preference relations, a set of decision rules is obtained, and these are applied to a set A\B of potential actions. The rough sets approach of looking for the reduction of the set of attributes gives us the possibility of operating on a multi‐attribute stochastic dominance for a reduced number of attributes. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.