{"id":13,"date":"2011-11-04T17:33:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T17:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=13"},"modified":"2011-11-22T22:46:57","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T03:46:57","slug":"high-blood-pressure-may-lead-to-missed-emotional-cues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2011\/11\/high-blood-pressure-may-lead-to-missed-emotional-cues\/","title":{"rendered":"High Blood Pressure May Lead to Missed Emotional Cues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Smiling Man\" src=\"http:\/\/www.therapytoronto.ca\/images\/splash\/SmilingMan1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"250\" \/>From the Clemson University media release:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Your ability to recognize emotional content in faces and texts is  linked to your blood pressure, according to a Clemson University  researcher.<\/p>\n<p>A recently published study by Clemson University psychology professor  James A. McCubbin and colleagues has shown that people with higher  blood pressure have reduced ability to recognize angry, fearful, sad and  happy faces and text passages.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like living in a world of email without smiley faces,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCubbin  said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We put smiley faces in emails to show when we are just kidding.  Otherwise some people may misinterpret our humor and get angry.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Some people have what McCubbin calls \u00e2\u20ac\u0153emotional dampening\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that may  cause them to respond inappropriately to anger or other emotions in  others.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For example, if your work supervisor is angry, you may mistakenly  believe that he or she is just kidding,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McCubbin said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This can lead  to miscommunication, poor job performance and increased psychosocial  distress.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In complex social situations like work settings, people rely on  facial expressions and verbal emotional cues to interact with others.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you have emotional dampening, you may distrust others because you  cannot read emotional meaning in their face or their verbal  communications,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You may even take more risks because you  cannot fully appraise threats in the environment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>McCubbin said the link between dampening of emotions and blood  pressure is believed to be involved in the development of hypertension  and risk for coronary heart disease, the biggest killer of both men and  women in the U.S. Emotional dampening also may be involved in disorders  of emotion regulation, such as bipolar disorders and depression.<\/p>\n<p>His theory of emotional dampening also applies to positive emotions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dampening of positive emotions may rob one of the restorative  benefits of close personal relations, vacations and hobbies,\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 he said.<\/p>\n<p>McCubbin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s study, published in the journal <em>Psychosomatic Medicine<\/em>,  was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the  National Institute on Aging, both parts of the National Institutes of  Health.<\/p>\n<p>The journal article was co-authored by Marcellus M. Merritt of the  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee psychology department; John J. Sollers  III if the psychological medicine department at the University of  Auckland; Dr. Michele K. Evans of the Laboratory of Immunology, National  Institute on Aging; Alan B. Zonderman, Laboratory of Behavioral  Neuroscience, National Institute on Aging; Dr. Richard D. Lane of the  psychiatry department, University of Arizona; and Julian F. Thayer of  the Ohio State University psychology department.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Clemson University media release: Your ability to recognize emotional content in faces and texts is linked to your blood pressure, according to a Clemson University researcher. A recently&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2011\/11\/high-blood-pressure-may-lead-to-missed-emotional-cues\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,10],"tags":[15,13,14,12,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}