Compare and contrast the 5 models of the relationship between hostility and health risk. What is the status of each in the research literature? What model should be chosen on the basis of current knowledge?

The psychophysiolocial reactivity model suggests that hostile people are at higher risk because they experience exaggerated autonomic and neuroendocrine response during stress. The psychosocial vulnerability model suggests that hostile people experience a more demanding interpersonal life than do others. The transactional model suggests that hostile people actively construct a world that has high interpersonal stress and a lack of social support, which increases vulnerability. Presumably this hybrid model includes higher physiological reactivity to the same psychosocial stressors, which adds to the impact of elevated stress for persons high in hostility. The health behaviour model suggests that hostile people, perhaps as a result of their higher stress levels, are at increased risk of choosing unhealthy behaviours (e.g., smoking). The constitutional vulnerability model posits that a third variable causes both hostility and increased risk of disease. Each of these models has received research support. Therefore the best model would be one that incorporates all five: a truly transactional model that includes increased probability of engaging in unhealthy behaviours, and where a portion (but not all) of the shared variance (between hostility and health risk) is accounted for by a third variable - constitutional vulnerability.