Cardiovascular Differentiation of Emotions RAJITA SINHA, PHD, WILLIAM R. LOVALLO, PHD, AND OSCAR A. PARSONS, PHD This study examined the cardiovascular mechanisms governing differential blood pressure changes during the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and anger. Heart rate, blood pressure, stroke volume, peripheral vascular resistance, cardiac output, and indices of myocardial contractility were measured during fear, anger, joy, sadness, physical action, and neutral imagery conditions in 27 right-handed male volunteers screened for imagery ability, alexithymia, anxiety, and depression. Anger imagery, rather than fear, was accompanied by the largest effects on the cardiovascular system. Increased diastolic blood pressure in anger was associated with main- tained levels of peripheral vascular resistance and increased cardiac output and heart rate compared with changes during neutral imagery. Sadness produced a distinct pattern with moderate increases in blood pressure and vascular resistance and a decrease in cardiac output compared with changes during neutral imagery. Fear, action, and joy produced similar blood pressure changes in which systolic pressure increased and diastolic pressure was relatively unchanged. The measurement of cardiac output and determination of vascular resistance changes during emotional imagery demonstrate that previously observed emotion-specific blood pressure responses are produced by underlying patterns of cardiovascular activation, which differ between the major categories of emotions. Key words: emotional reactivity; cardiovascular mechanisms; emotions; cardiovascular differ- entiation. INTRODUCTION The present study is concerned with the differential patterns of cardiovascular activity during different emotion states. With the renewed emphasis on the psy- chophysiological study of emotional re- actions in recent years, the notion of emo- tion-specific autonomic nervous system activity (ANS) has been the source of venue, itcvv naVen, CT 06519. Received for publication May 14, 1991; revision received March 19, 1992 much controversy. The old James-Cannon debate has been resurrected, albeit with certain new nuances. Three major theo- retical positions have emerged regarding the issue, with no clear resolution to the problem. The first position embraces Can- non's view of undifferentiated autonomic arousal during emotion states (1-3); the second position argues that emotions can best be described along the affective di- mensions of valence, arousal, and control (4-6); and the third position stems from evidence supporting discrete emotion- specific autonomic activity (7-9). One of the most consistent findings in research on emotion-specific autonomic nervous system activity has been the dif- ferential increases in blood pressure dur- ing fear and anger (7, 8, 10-13). Although less well studied, differential blood pres- sure changes have also been reported dur- 422 Psychosomatic Medicine 54:422-435 (1992) 0033-3174/92/5404-0422$03.00/0 Copyright <0 1992 by the American Psychosomatic Society