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Relations of Subjective Social Status and Brooding with Blood Pressure

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Abstract

Background

Brooding, a type of rumination, and subjective social status (SSS) may be two interacting factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Our goal was to examine the relations of brooding and SSS with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), two measures of CVD. We predicted that [1] brooding and SSS are each related to SBP and DBP and [2] the interaction of brooding and SSS is linked to SBP and DBP.

Method

In this cross-sectional study, college student participants (n = 240; 58.6% female, age: M = 23.95 years, SD = 8.62) completed demographics questionnaires, the Ruminative Response Scale, and MacArthur Subjective Social Status scale, and gave blood pressure samples.

Results

Linear models suggested that, for participants low in SSS, high brooding and DBP were positively related. For participants high in SSS, high brooding and low DBP were negatively related. There were no relations between SSS, brooding, and SBP.

Conclusions

As predicted, for individuals with low SSS, more brooding was associated with higher DBP. Yet, in individuals with high SSS, more brooding was associated with lower DBP. There was no relation between SSS, brooding, and SBP. Our results suggest that brooding may serve as diathesis for some symptoms of CVD (i.e., high DBP but not high SBP) in individuals with low SSS. We discuss how other factors, like burnout or defensive pessimism, may contribute to the relation between high SSS, high brooding, and low DBP.

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Notes

  1. Research [49] suggests that gender relates to brooding such that women are more likely to brood and to suffer negative consequences of brooding than are men. Thus, we conducted exploratory analyses to examine for effects of gender on the examined associations, which did not result in a significant gender effect.

Abbreviations

DBP:

Diastolic blood pressure

SBP:

Systolic blood pressure

SSS:

Subjective social status

SES:

Socioeconomic status

BMI:

Body mass index

CVD:

Cardiovascular disease

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Correspondence to Brooks R. Harbison M.A..

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Harbison, B.R., Pössel, P. & Roane, S.J. Relations of Subjective Social Status and Brooding with Blood Pressure. Int.J. Behav. Med. 26, 278–285 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-019-09784-5

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