How a husband and wife view their roles in the marriage - dominant or submissive - has a lot to do with how their blood pressure changes when they express opinions and try to influence each other.
According to new research, increases in blood pressure during an argument are larger when one spouse perceives the other as relatively dominant, but smaller if that spouse considers the other as clearly dominant and the argument impossible to win or at least not worth the effort.
Writing in the current issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine (Vol. 20, No. 4) being published today, Timothy W. Smith, PhD, Peter C. Brown, PhD, and Lorna S. Benjamin, PhD, of the University of Utah, say the expression of dominance in a marriage may have important consequences not only for blood pressure but also ultimately as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
The researchers asked 45 young couples to rate how they perceived their typical level of dominance or submission in their marriage. On average, the couples had been married four years and had 1.2 children.
With blood pressure cuffs attached, each couple then was told to argue opposing positions on how to carry out radical teaching staff cuts at a hypothetical local school. Disagreement was created by giving each spouse a different list of positions to stake out and defend.
When blood pressure responses were correlated with the self-ratings the couples had provided, researchers found that:
* Arguing with a spouse perceived as relatively dominant was linked with larger increases in blood pressure than arguing with a spouse considered relatively submissive, but
* Arguing with a spouse perceived as clearly dominant, where chances of success are considered impossible or not worth the effort, resulted in minimal increases in blood pressure.
Despite their findings, Smith and colleagues say "any suggestion that the psychophysiological correlates of the expression of dominance in marriage might have significance for cardiovascular health must be tentative."
Annals of Behavioral Medicine is the official peer-reviewed publication of The Society of Behavioral Medicine. For information about the journal, contact editor Arthur Stone, PhD, 516-632-8833.
Posted by the Center for the Advancement of Health http://www.cfah.org.
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information about the Center contact Richard Hebert rhebert@cfah.org 202-387-2829.
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Annals of Behavioral Medicine