Routine academic events may cause stress and produce temporary elevations in blood pressure. Students who experience test anxiety may be especially prone to cardiovascular activation in response to academic stress. This study drew on self-reported stress and ambulatory blood pressure measurements provided by 99 undergraduate participants (30% men, mean age=21 years) who participated over 4 days. Posture, activity level, recent consumption and the previous same-day reading were considered as covariates in a series of hierarchical linear models. Results indicate elevations in systolic blood pressure at times of acute academic stressors; neither diastolic blood pressure nor heart rate was linked with academic stress. In addition, those participants higher in test anxiety exhibited especially pronounced elevations in systolic blood pressure during times of acute academic stress. This research suggests that everyday academic stressors are linked with temporary increases in blood pressure and that test anxiety may contribute to these elevations. Test anxiety has implications for future academic and job success, and cardiovascular responses to everyday stress may contribute to health problems later in life.

Although laboratory research indicates that social-evaluative threat evokes a physical stress response, naturalistic studies of its situational determinants remain scarce. This work investigates the correlates of naturally occurring social-evaluative threats and tests the effects of situational control and social-evaluative threat on cardiovascular functioning. A total of 99 undergraduate students wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 4 days. Following hourly activations of the monitor, participants described their activities at the time the monitor activated and rated situational control and social-evaluative threat. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated relative elevations in systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure at times when participants reported more social-evaluative threat. Increases in heart rate were observed in low control situations. Cardiovascular reactivity to social-evaluative threat was observed in a young healthy sample during real-life social interactions, suggesting that situationspecific reactivity to social-evaluative threat does occur and that social-evaluative threat may contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease.

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