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In the psychosomatic literature hypertension has frequently been associated with an inability to express emotions, especially those emotions involving conflict. The present study was designed to directly assess the performance of hypertensive patients in increasingly demanding interpersonal interactions. Twelve extended role-played scenes incorporating the expression of positive and negative emotional states were employed in the study. Behavioral, physiological, and subjective ratings were obtained. Performance by the hypertensive subjects was compared to performance of both patient and nonpatient normotensive subjects, who were carefully matched with the hypertensives on a number of demographic variables. The results of the study indicated that the hypertensive patients responded less assertively on a number of dimensions than did the nonpatient comparison group. However, the performance of the normotensive patient group was similar to that of the hypertensive patients. Physiological and subjective data indicated compafable responding across all three experimental groups. The discussion focuses on the existence of a chronic illness syndrome that potentially has strong behavioral correlates.