A REVIEW OF THE EXPLICATIVE MODELS WHICH RELATE THE CONSTRUCT HOSTILITY/ANGER/AGGRESSION TO THE CORONARY HEART DISEASE

Abstract

The construct of hostility/anger/aggression (HIA) has been one of the most important factors related to coronary heart disease (EC). In the last decades, the evidence has showed the importance of the psychophysiological hypereactivity as the mediative mechanism between the construct HIA and the EC. However, there has also been emphasized the relevance of the environmental, constitutional and behavioural factors to understand how the construct HIA can produce and increase the pathophysiological processes implicated in the EC. In this job, we are going to expound which are the main models proposed to explain the relationship HIA-EC: model of psychosocial vulnerability, models of constitutional vulnerability, model of behavioral health, model of psychophysiological reactivity and transactional model. To conclude, we propose a summary model. This model both consider the most important aspects of the previous models and can be used as a starting point to study some aspects which have not widely been analyzed, like the characteristic of individual response specifity.