Comparison Between Autonomic and Cognitive Recovery in High vs Low Anger Ruminators

Anger rumination (AR) consists of the persistent recall and focus on anger-inducing episodes and has been associated with prolonged activation of the sympathetic nervous system, as indexed by markers such as heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP). This study aimed to investigate whether proneness to AR influences physiological reactivity, subjective experience, and difficulty disengaging from anger-related thoughts after recalling an anger episode. To this end, 47 participants with high (N = 24) and low levels of AR (N = 23), as assessed by the AR Scale, completed an autobiographical recall paradigm, which included three timepoints (baseline, anger recall and recovery), in which participants were asked to remember and re-experience a personally anger-provoking event. Results suggest that the paradigm was more effective in inducing physiological reactivity in individuals with high AR, as HR and BP significantly increased from baseline to the recall phase, which was not observed in the low AR group. However, during the recovery phase, no significant differences in HR or BP were found between groups. In addition, the high AR group reported more intense subjective experiences of anger and greater difficulty in letting go of thoughts related to the angry recalled episode after the recovery period. Together, these findings suggest that while AR may not prolong physiological arousal as measured using HR and BP, it may contribute to the maintenance of the cognitive and subjective components of anger, highlighting the importance of targeting ruminative processes in interventions designed to facilitate emotional recovery following anger-inducing events.