Andreas Busjahn1, Hans-Dieter Faulhaber1, Friedrich C. Luft1
External stressors do not exert their influence on humans directly, but are filtered by personal assessment as part of the coping process. Situational characteristics like significance, emotional quality (e.g. pleasant vs. unpleasant, anger), challenge, threat, controllability are important factors in the network of the stress-response. Cardiovascular reactions to stress are heritable, independent of the genetic factors influencing resting blood pressure (A. Busjahn et al., 1996, J.Hypertens. 14, 1195-1199). Beside physiological systems regulating blood pressure psychological processes are involved, thus genetic influences on personal assessment may contribute to the heritability of the stress response. We tested the hypothesis of genetic influences on assessment in the context of a twin study on a variety of cardiovascular phenotypes, including reaction to a psychological stress test. 122 MZ twin pairs and 65 DZ twin pairs are included so far. After completing three different types of task (Stroop-test, mental arithmetics, psychomotor task) probands were asked to assess the test situation on a number of 5-point Likert Scales. The two extremes were verbalized (e.g. Did you experience the situation as pleasant ... unpleasant). Heritability estimates for the different dimensions of assessment are in the range of 0 to 0.30 and thus smaller than those of more generalized personality dimensions. Nevertheless there is a significant genetic influence on this relevant psychological process. The hypothesis of shared genetic variance of cardiovascular stress response and personal assessment of stressful situations will be tested in a larger sample at the end of our study.
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1Franz-Volhard-Klinik at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine