Erwin, Thomas Edward2012-02-242012-02-242009-05Erwin, T. E. (2009). <i>Effects of sex and disposition on cardiovascular reactivity and recovery</i> (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, Texas.https://hdl.handle.net/10877/4096This study investigated the effects of sex and optimism on cardiovascular reactivity and recovery from a psychological stressor (timed serial subtraction). Participants consisted of 35 males and 46 females with an average age of 20.4 years. A total of 26 cardiovascular measurements were taken over a 26 minute period consisting of 10 minutes baseline, 6 minutes reactivity, and 10 minutes recovery. It was hypothesized that there would be a main effect for optimism on systolic and diastolic blood pressure and a sex by disposition interaction for heart rate. Results found that optimism had no significant main effect on any cardiovascular measures (systolic, diastolic, or heart rate).Text62 pages1 file (.pdf)enOptimismSexStressCardiovascularPessimismReactivityPsychologyThesis