Hostility, facial configuration, and bilateral asymmetry on galvanic skin response

Abstract

The effects of hostility on bilateral measures of skin conductance during affective facial configurations were investigated. Highly hostile and non-hostile men were instructed in making facial configurations that were identified by raters as happy, angry, or neutral. Subjects were asked to make the set of facial configurations twice with unstructured baselines taken prior to each expression. Significant increases in skin conductance were found from baseline across all three facial configurations. Skin conductance varied as a function of affect, decreasing from angry to happy to neutral configurations. A three-way group x hand x block interaction was found. The high-hostile group showed persistence in the elevation of conductance at the left hand through Block 2. In contrast, reduced skin conductance at the left hand was found in the low-hostile group, along with habituation at the left hand across blocks. The possibility of altered fight cerebral systems in high-hostile individuals is discussed.