Skip to main content
Search
Search
    Quick Search anywhere
    Quick search in Citations
Advanced Search
Skip main navigationClose Drawer MenuOpen Drawer Menu
Previous article
Article

Inducing Unconscious Stress

Subliminal Anger and Relax Primes Show Similar Cardiovascular Activity Patterns

Published Online:August 29, 2019https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803/a000247

Abstract

Abstract. Stress-related stimuli may be presented outside of awareness and may ultimately influence health by causing repetitive increases in physiological parameters, such as blood pressure (BP). In this study, we aimed to corroborate previous studies that demonstrated BP effects of subliminally presented stress-related stimuli. This would add evidence to the hypothesis that unconscious manifestations of stress can affect somatic health. Additionally, we suggest that these findings may be extended by measuring affective changes relating to these physiological changes, using measures for self-reported and implicit positive and negative affectivity. Using a repeated measures between-subject design, we presented either the prime word “angry” (n = 26) or “relax” (n = 28) subliminally (17 ms) for 100 trials to a student sample and measured systolic and diastolic BP, heart rate (HR), and affect. The “angry” prime, compared to the “relax” prime, did not affect any of the outcome variables. During the priming task, a higher level of implicit negative affect (INA) was associated with a lower systolic BP and diastolic BP. No association was found with HR. Self-reported affect and implicit positive affect were not related to the cardiovascular (CV) activity. In sum, anger and relax primes elicited similar CV activity patterns, but implicit measures of affect may provide a new method to examine the relationship between (unconscious) stress and health.

References

  • Blascovich, J. (2008). Challenge and threat. In A. J. ElliotEd., Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 431–445). New York, NY: Psychology Press. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Brandt, M. J., IJzerman, H., Dijksterhuis, A., Farach, F. J., Geller, J., Giner-Sorolla, R., & Van’t Veer, A. (2014). The replication recipe: What makes for a convincing replication? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 217–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.10.005 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Brosschot, J. F. (2010). Markers of chronic stress: Prolonged physiological activation and (un)conscious perseverative cognition. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.01.004 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Brosschot, J. F., Geurts, S. A. E., Kruizinga, I., Radstaak, M., Verkuil, B., Quirin, M., & Kompier, M. A. J. (2014). Does unconscious stress play a role in prolonged cardiovascular stress recovery? Stress and Health, 30, 179–187. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2590 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Brosschot, J. F., Van Dijk, E., & Thayer, J. F. (2007). Daily worry is related to low heart rate variability during waking and the subsequent nocturnal sleep period. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 63, 39–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2006.07.016 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Brosschot, J. F., Verkuil, B., & Thayer, J. F. (2010). Conscious and unconscious perseverative cognition: Is a large part of prolonged physiological activity due to unconscious stress? Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 69, 407–416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.02.002 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Eckert, S., & Horstkotte, D. (2002). Comparison of Portapres non-invasive blood pressure measurement in the finger with intra-aortic pressure measurement during incremental bicycle exercise. Blood Pressure Monitoring, 7, 179–183. https://doi.org/10.1097/00126097-200206000-00006 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A.-G (2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Fazio, R. H. (2001). On the automatic activation of associated evaluations: An overview. Cognition and Emotion, 15, 115–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930125908 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Forgas, J. P. (1995). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological Bulletin, 117, 39–66. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.1.39 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Garfinkel, S. N., Zorab, E., Navaratnam, N., Engels, M., Mallorquí-Bagué, N., Minati, L., … Critchley, H. D. (2016). Anger in brain and body: The neural and physiological perturbation of decision-making by emotion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11, 150–158. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv099 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Gibbons, H. (2009). Evaluative priming from subliminal emotional words: Insights from event-related potentials and individual differences related to anxiety. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 18, 383–400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2009.02.007 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: Guilford Press. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Hermans, D., & De Houwer, J. (1994). Affective and subjective familiarity ratings of 740 Dutch words. Psychologica Belgica, 34, 115–139. First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Hill, L., Sollers, I. J., & Thayer, J. (2011). Evaluation of a simple estimation method for the derivation of cardiac output from arterial blood pressure and heart rate. Biomedical Sciences Instrumentation, 48, 165–170. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Hill, L., Sollers, I. J., & Thayer, J. (2012). Resistance reconstructed estimation of total peripheral resistance from computationally derived cardiac output. Biomedical Sciences Instrumentation, 49, 216–223. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Hull, J. G., Slone, L. B., Meteyer, K. B., & Matthews, A. R. (2002). The nonconsciousness of self-consciousness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 406–424. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.406 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Keuleers, E., Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2010). SUBTLEX-NL: A new measure for Dutch word frequency based on film subtitles. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 643–650. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.3.643 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Kuhl, J., Quirin, M., & Koole, S. L. (2015). Being someone: The integrated self as a neuropsychological system. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9, 115–132. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12162 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Lane, R. D. (2008). Neural substrates of implicit and explicit emotional processes: A unifying framework for psychosomatic medicine. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70, 214–231. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181647e44 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Lang, P. J. (1994). The varieties of emotional experience: A meditation on James-Lange theory. Psychological Review, 101, 211–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.101.2.211 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Llabre, M. M., Spitzer, S. B., Saab, P. G., Ironson, G. H., & Schneiderman, N. (1991). The reliability and specificity of delta versus residualized change as measures of cardiovascular reactivity to behavioral challenges. Psychophysiology, 28, 701–711. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1991.tb01017.x First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ludbrook, J. (2013). Should we use one‐sided or two‐sided P values in tests of significance? Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, 40, 357–361. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1681.12086 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Mackinnon, D. W., & Dukes, W. F. (1962). Repression. In L. PostmanEd., Psychology in the making: Histories of selected research problems (pp. 662–744). New York, NY: Knopf. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Merikle, P. (1984). Toward a definition of awareness. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 22, 449–450. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333874 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Merikle, P. M., Smilek, D., & Eastwood, J. D. (2001). Perception without awareness: Perspectives from cognitive psychology. Cognition, 79, 115–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(00)00126-8 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Mossink, J. C. L., Verkuil, B., Burger, A. M., Tollenaar, M. S., & Brosschot, J. F. (2015). Ambulatory assessed implicit affect is associated with salivary cortisol. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 111. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00111 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Ottaviani, C., Thayer, J. F., Verkuil, B., Lonigro, A., Medea, B., Couyoumdjian, A., & Brosschot, J. F. (2016). Physiological concomitants of perseverative cognition: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 142, 231–259. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000036 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Pfeiffer, J. S., Berry, C. C., Nelesen, R. A., & Dimsdale, J. E. (1998). Continuous versus occasional measurement of blood pressure in reactivity testing. Blood Pressure Monitoring, 3, 1–7. First citation in articleGoogle Scholar

  • Pieper, S., & Brosschot, J. F. (2005). Prolonged stress-related cardiovascular activation: Is there any? Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 30, 91–103. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324796abm3002_1 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., & Bode, R. C. (2014). An alternative to self-reports of trait and state affect: The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30, 231–237. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000190 First citation in articleLink, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., Bode, R. C., & Kuhl, J. (2011). Recovering from negative events by boosting implicit positive affect. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 559–570. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.536418 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., Fröhlich, S., & Kuhl, J. (2017). Implicit self and right hemisphere: Increasing implicit self-esteem and implicit positive affect by left hand contractions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 48, 4–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2281 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., Kazén, M., & Kuhl, J. (2009). When nonsense sounds happy or helpless: The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 500–516. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016063 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., Kazén, M., Rohrmann, S., & Kuhl, J. (2009). Implicit but not explicit affectivity predicts circadian and reactive cortisol: Using the implicit positive and negative affect test. Journal of Personality, 77, 401–425. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00552.x First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Quirin, M., Wróbel, M., Pala, A. N., Stieger, S., Shanchuan, D., Hicks, J. A., … Kuhl, J. (2016). A cross-cultural validation of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT): Results from ten nations across three continents. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 34, 52–63. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000315 First citation in articleLink, Google Scholar

  • Ratcliff, R. (1993). Methods for dealing with reaction time outliers. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 510–532. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.3.510 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Schmidt, S. (2009). Shall we really do it again? The powerful concept of replication is neglected in the social sciences. Review of General Psychology, 13, 90–100. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015108 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Seery, M.D. (2011). Challenge or threat? Cardiovascularindexesofresilienceandvulnerabilitytopotentialstressinhumans. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1603–1610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.03.003 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Sosnowski, T., Bala, A., & Rynkiewicz, A. (2010). Mental task demands and cardiovascular response patterns. Biological Psychology, 84, 264–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.02.003 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Stanislaw, H., & Todorov, N. (1999). Calculation of signal detection theory measures. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 31, 137–149. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207704 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Van der Ploeg, M. M., Brosschot, J. F., Thayer, J. F., & Verkuil, B. (2016). The implicit positive and negative affect test: Validity and relationship with cardiovascular stress-responses. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00425 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Van der Ploeg, M. M., Brosschot, J. F., Versluis, A., & Verkuil, B. (2017). Peripheral physiological responses to subliminally presented negative affective stimuli: A systematic review. Biological Psychology, 129, 131–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.08.051 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Van der Ploeg, M. M., Brosschot, J. F., Verkuil, B., Gillie, B. L., Williams, D. P., Koenig, J., … Thayer, J. F. (2017). Inducing unconscious stress: Cardiovascular activity in response to subliminal presentation of threatening and neutral words. Psychophysiology, 54, 1489–1511. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12891 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar

  • Yoshino, K., & Matsuoka, K. (2009). Effect of mood during daily life on autonomic nervous activity balance during subsequent sleep. Autonomic Neuroscience, 150, 147–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autneu.2009.03.013 First citation in articleCrossref, Google Scholar