Browsing by Author "Emerson, Carol S."

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    Anger and denial as predictors of cardiovascular reactivity in women
    Emerson, Carol S. (Virginia Tech, 1989-12-05)
    Behavioral and physiological reactivity, and its relationship to cardiovascular disease has been studied in men for a number of years, and the expression of anger has been identified as a possible contributing factor. Few studies, however, have focused specifically on the reactivity of women, and those which have suggest that women are less reactive to laboratory tasks than men. For the present study, 45 undergraduate women, ages 19-21 were selected from a larger sample of 135 women to represent three discrete groups: (1) low anger/low denial, (2) high anger/low denial, and (3) low anger/high denial, based on their scores on the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, P and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. It was hypothesized that the three groups would show reliable differences in heart rate and blood pressure during presentation of a stressful laboratory stimulus, the Stroop Color and Word Test. Each subject received three counterbalanced conditions: (1) no feedback, (2) error feedback without observer present, (3) error feedback with observer present. As hypothesized, women who reported a high level of denial and a low level of anger exhibited reliably greater systolic blood pressure to the no-feedback condition than subjects who reported low levels of denial and anger. The hypothesis that all groups would display greater A reactivity in a condition which provided error feedback with observation was not supported.
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    Sensory and cognitive processing deficits in anxious depressed children: a neurobehavioral study
    Emerson, Carol S. (Virginia Tech, 1996-04-17)
    The neurobehavioral effects of anxiety and depression on functional systems of the right posterior and left frontal regions were measured in two groups of 9 to 11 year old boys to determine whether children exhibit processing and motor deficits similar to those found in previous studies of depressed adults. Individuals with a prior history of anxiety, depression, learning disability or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder were eliminated from participation. One group was classified as high in depression and anxiety based on cut-off scores on the Child Depression Inventory, and the Trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, respectively. The other group was classified as low in depression and anxiety using the same measures. Group performance was compared on measures of auditory identification of affective prosody (happy, sad, angry, and neutral), hemispheric lateralization of affective and propositional speech, grip strength, verbal fluency, problem solving, and alternation and sequencing. As predicted, anxious-depressed subjects performed less accurately on the identification of happy, sad, and angry affective prosody in congruent and incongruent conditions, were relatively less lateralized on both dichotic listening and grip strength measures, Further, anxious depressed children were less proficient than non-anxious, nondepressed children on measures of frontal executive functioning, including verbal fluency, problem-solving, and alternation, but not on measures of sequencing.