Mode-specific impact of relaxation training for hypertensive men with type a behavior pattern

Multimodal therapy calls for selection of interventions on the basis of the specific modes of functioning that they are expected to affect. Mode-specificity assumptions were tested in a study of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) training for type A men with borderline hypertension. It was expected that PMR would be especially effective in reducing psychophysiological reactivity and not effective for hostile cognition or behavioral anger expression. Forty-three subjects were randomly assigned to a control group receiving medical information or to information + PMR. PMR subjects reduced blood pressure reactivity to an anger-instigating role-play more than did controls. Although trait questionnaire measures of hostility and outward anger expression showed no group differences, a think-aloud measure of hostility and an observational measure of anger expression favored PMR. Discussion focuses on alternative explanations for these results, including the possibility that measures failing to show treatment effects were those confounded with negative affectivity