Psychology News
Researchers at the University of Konstanz explored how hypertensive men have a biased recognition of other people’s anger. The study is now published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
The Study
To understand the psychobiosocial mechanisms in hypertension, the researchers asked 145 normotensive and hypertensive men to label emotions in pictures of people’s faces. The computer-morphed pictures mostly had faces that displayed mixed emotions (and not just anger) in varying intensities.
The study was limited to male participants, as women had different patterns of emotion recognition and lacked substantial cases of hypertension.
The Findings
According to the results, men with high blood pressure are more biased in anger recognition. This anger recognition bias in men with hypertension makes them more intensely sensitive towards anger. This tendency to overrate anger ‘displayed’ by other people is referred to as “trait anger” and it enhances their high blood pressure. This poses them with risks of associated health conditions like cardiovascular diseases (CVD).
Towards Interventions
The researchers are enthusiastic that studies like this can help develop effective therapeutic interventions for people with essential hypertension. They are thinking of “therapeutic treatments that address a person’s perception of social environments in order to protect them from other people’s anger.”
To Know More You May Refer To
Auer, A., von Känel, R., Lang, I., Thomas, L., Zuccarella-Hackl, C., Degroote, C., Gideon, A., Wiest, R., & Wirtz, P. H. (2022). Do Hypertensive Men Spy With an Angry Little Eye? Anger Recognition in Men With Essential Hypertension – Cross-sectional and Prospective Findings. Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, kaab108. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab108