Four cardiovascular responses are used to differentiate challenge and threat. Ventricular contractility (VC), which is indexed by a decrease in pre-ejection period, a measure of the contractile force of the heart or the time from the initiation of left ventricular contraction until the aortic valve opens, was assessed in …show more content…
In addition, they have been used in numerous published tests of personality and social psychological theories (e.g., social facilitation, social comparison, stigma, self-esteem, religiosity, etc.—see Blascovich, 2008 and Blascovich and Seery, 2007, for recent reviews) providing convergent validation. Indeed, there are few, if any more well-validated cardiovascular indexes of any psychological