Biological Work and Health Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Ann Behav Med. 2022 Aug 30;56(9):875-889. doi: 10.1093/abm/kaab108.
Higher trait anger has inconsistently been associated with hypertension and hypertension development, but social context in terms of recognition of other persons' anger has been neglected in this context.
Here, we investigated anger recognition of facial affect and trait anger in essential hypertensive and normotensive men in addition to prospective associations with blood pressure (BP) increases.
Baseline assessment comprised a total of 145 participants including 57 essential hypertensive and 65 normotensive men who were otherwise healthy and medication-free. Seventy-two eligible participants additionally completed follow-up assessment 3.1 (±0.08 SEM) years later to analyze BP changes over time. We assessed emotion recognition of facial affect with a paradigm displaying mixed facial affect of two morphed basic emotions including anger, fear, sadness, and happiness. Trait anger was assessed with the Spielberger trait anger scale.
Cross-sectionally, we found that with increasing BP, hypertensive men overrated anger displayed in facial expressions of mixed emotions as compared to normotensive men (ps ≤ .019) while there were no differences in trait anger (p = .16). Prospectively, the interaction between mean anger recognition and trait anger independently predicted BP increases from baseline to follow-up (ps ≤ .043), in that overrating displayed anger predicted future BP increases only if trait anger was high.
Our findings indicate an anger recognition bias in men with essential hypertension and that overrating displayed anger in combination with higher trait anger seems to predict future BP increases. This might be of clinical relevance for the development and progression of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
较高的特质愤怒与高血压和高血压发展的关系不一致，但在这种情况下，人们忽略了从他人角度识别愤怒的社会背景。
在此，我们研究了原发性高血压男性和血压正常男性对面部表情和特质愤怒的愤怒识别，此外还研究了其与血压升高的前瞻性关联。
基线评估共包括 145 名参与者，其中 57 名原发性高血压男性和 65 名血压正常男性，他们身体健康且未服用药物。另外，72 名符合条件的参与者在 3.1（±0.08 SEM）年后完成了随访评估，以分析随时间变化的血压变化。我们使用显示两种混合基本情绪（包括愤怒、恐惧、悲伤和快乐）的混合面部表情的范式来评估面部表情情绪识别。特质愤怒使用斯皮尔伯格特质愤怒量表进行评估。
在横断面研究中，我们发现随着血压的升高，与血压正常的男性相比，高血压男性对面部混合表情中显示的愤怒的高估程度高于血压正常的男性（p 值≤0.019），而特质愤怒没有差异（p=0.16）。前瞻性地，平均愤怒识别与特质愤怒之间的相互作用独立预测了从基线到随访的血压升高（p 值≤0.043），即仅当特质愤怒较高时，对显示的愤怒的高估预测未来的血压升高。
我们的研究结果表明原发性高血压男性存在愤怒识别偏差，并且对显示的愤怒的高估与较高的特质愤怒相结合似乎可以预测未来的血压升高。这可能对高血压和心血管疾病的发展和进展具有临床意义。
