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Social Ties And Cardiovascular Function: An Examination Of Relationship Positivity And Negativity During Stress, Wendy C. Birmingham, Bert N. Uchino, Timothy W. Smith, Kathy C. Light, David M. Sanbonmatsu

Faculty Publications

The quality and quantity of one’s relationships have been reliably linked to morbidity and mortality. More recently, studies have focused on links between relationships and cardiovascular reactivity as a physiological mechanism via the stress-buffering hypothesis. However, not all social relationships are consistently positive which points to the importance of a more comprehensive examination of relationship that includes negative qualities. In this study, we manipulated relationship positivity and negativity with an experimenter and examined its influence on cardiovascular reactivity. Results revealed that relationship positivity was associated with lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) reactivity for men and women. Relationship negativity, on the …