Abstract
Cardiovascular (heart rate; systolic, mean, and diastolic blood pressures) and plasma catecholamine (norepinephrine, epinephrine) responses of 12 adult male subjects were examined while they participated in the Type A structured interview, played a video game, and rode a bicycle ergometer at 65% and 80% of maximum heart rate. All of the tasks led to reliable increases in cardiovascular and/or catecholamine activity. Patterns of responses differed among tasks, however, with significantly larger cardiovascular and norepinephrine responses occurring to 80% exercise than to the laboratory behavioral stressors. The video game task led to a significant elevation in epinephrine, whereas the exercise task did not. Type A's showed greater systolic blood pressure responses than B's during the structured interview, but B's showed greater norepinephrine responses than A's during exercise at 80% of maximum heart rate. The results suggest that different cardiovascular and hormonal response patterns are elicited by various stressors and that subjects classified as Type A do not necessarily show greater cardiovascular and catecholamine changes on all challenging tasks.