The relationships of impulsivity and cardiovascular responses: The role of gender and task type

The present study was conducted to assess the relationships of impulsivity with both baseline cardiovascular levels and reactivity during two laboratory stressors in both female and male young adults. Heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured at rest and during a reaction time and speech task in one hundred and one undergraduate students. Impulsivity was measured using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 and Block's Ego-Undercontrol Scale. Males and females responded similarly to both laboratory tasks and also did not differ on the impulsivity scales. For males, higher scores on impulsivity were associated with higher systolic BP levels at rest but decreased systolic BP and HR reactivity during the preparation of the speech task; females showed no relationships of resting cardiovascular levels with impulsivity, but more impulsive females did show decreased HR response during speech preparation. No significant relationships were found between impulsivity and either HRV levels or reactivity. It is speculated that tasks involving a degree of planning may be important to find relationships between impulsivity and cardiovascular reactivity, especially in males.