Do agonistic motives matter more than anger? Three studies of cardiovascular risk in adolescents.

Stressful social relationships are implicated as risk factors for a variety of health problems, including cardiovascular disease; risk is greatest in those exposed to significant interpersonal stress over a long span of time (Smith et al., 2007). Social action theory (Ewart, 1994, 2009; Ewart, in press) offers a motivational analysis of self-regulatory mechanisms that create such exposure, and that can be modified to enhance human health through social-relational means. In a social action view, chronic stress develops through daily interpersonal encounters that induce strivings to influence, manage, or control others. We have shown in research with low-income multiethnic community samples of adolescents and young adults that persistent stress induced by striving to influence others is associated with higher blood pressure during normal daily activities—especially social interactions—than is persistent stress induced by striving to achieve demanding self-goals (Ewart, in press; Ewart & Jorgensen, 2004). We now report results of three new studies in a different multiethnic urban community to test the hypothesis that the association between self-goals and blood pressure in daily social encounters is moderated by anger regulation skills. Methods to assess personal motives that shape daily stress experiences were developed in Project Heart, a series of community-based studies in Baltimore that, since the mid-1980’s, have investigated how chronic exposure to social and psychological challenges affects the development of hypertension from adolescence into young adulthood in high-risk Black and White youth (e.g., Ewart, 1994, 2004; Ewart & Jorgensen, 2004; Ewart & Kolodner, 1991, 1993, 1994). Goals are identified with an emotionally evocative “stress narrative” task administered during the Social Competence Interview (Ewart, Jorgensen, Suchday, Chen, & Matthews, 2002; Ewart & Kolodner, 1991); assessment of “implicit” goals inferred from the narratives (see below) lets one ask if certain types of goals are more likely to foster stress, and if stress exposure is moderated by the ability to regulate negative emotions (Ewart & Kolodner, 1994).