Previous studies have suggested that hostility may play a role in some disease processes, particularly heart disease and depression, and may contribute to morbidity and mortality. The current study will be undertaken to further examine the relationship between hostility and well-being, the hypothesis being that higher levels of hostility will cause lower levels of well-being, and higher levels of well-being will lower hostility levels. It is also hypothesized that those who score higher on the General Well-Being Scale will be in better health than those who score high on the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale.
A study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, asked 900 couples to complete a questionnaire which assessed depression and three aspects of hostility: cynicism, aggressive responses to problems, and negative feelings towards each other (Chipley, 2000). Both men and women in the study who rated themselves as highly hostile were depressed. Men who rated themselves as cynical were most likely to be depressed, unrelated to having a hostile wife whereas women whose husbands scored high on all three measures of hostility showed high rates of depression. According to the researchers, previous studies have shown that the quality of a relationship has a significant impact on a woman's well-being, whereas for a man, just having a relationship is the important thing. Women are more emotionally responsive, and their blood pressure is more likely to increase during an argument. A woman with a hostile husband is at risk for deleterious effects to both her physical and her mental health.
Studies by Barefoot, Dodge, Peterson, Dahlstrom and Williams (1989) examined the correlations between subsets of items on the Cook and Medley Hostility Scale with scales of the NEO Personality Inventory in two samples of undergraduates, and looked at the ability of the Hostility Scale and these same subsets to pred...