Ability Perception and Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Response to Behavioral Challenge

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This project investigates sex differences that have been observed in cardiovascular (CV) response to stress. The most common sex effect is greater systolic blood pressure responsivity in men than in women. However, some studies have yielded an opposite CV response pattern, others have yielded CV sex effects only on certain tasks, and still others have yielded no CV sex effects at all. Questions of where, how, and why the sexes differ in CV response are scientifically important, and also of practical concern because chronically high CV responses are suspected to contribute to the development of CV disease, for which men are at increased risk. The current project is based on a perceived ability analysis of CV sex effects, which begins with the assumption that women and men tend to differ in how capable they feel with regard to some tasks, but tend not to differ in how capable they feel with regard to other tasks. The analysis then applies a recent model of effort and CV response to identify conditions under which CV sex differences of different types should and should not emerge. In addition to shedding theoretical light on CV findings that have puzzled research scientists for some time, the proposed experiments should provide important new evidence regarding the fundamental perceived-ability/CV-response relation and afford a special opportunity to compare different theoretical views that pertain to it.