Table 3.

Studies reporting associations between mastery and cardiovascular reactivity to acute stress.

Study	Participants	Design	Mastery Construct	Mastery Measure	CVD Outcome	Results/Findings	Effect Size (Cohen’s d)
Cattanach et al., 1988	30 undergraduate women (15 women meeting eating disorder criteria based on an eating disorder inventory and 15 controls not meeting criteria), ages 17-21 years	Cross- sectional	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale	Blood pressure and pulse rate responses to a stressor task	Mastery was not associated with responses to laboratory stressors in either group.	Insufficient information to calculate effect size
Light et al., 2004	25 recent mothers without history of drug-exposure during pregnancy or postpartum (age 29±1 years) and 10 recent mothers reporting cocaine use during pregnancy (age 30±2 years); participants were free of CVD	Cross- sectional	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale	Resting and post-acute stressor measurements of blood pressure, plasma norepinephrine, plasma epinephrine, and plasma oxytocin; serum cortisol as well as urinary cortisol and catecholamines were also collected.	Oxytocin at baseline and during the stressor task were positively associated with mastery in both groups. Mastery was unassociated with other biomarkers.	Oxytocin: d = .85 (baseline) d = .70 (post- speech) Insufficient information to calculate effect size for other biomarkers
Ma et al., 2007	38 healthy women (mean age 58±8 years)	Cross- sectional	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale	Autonomic (skin conductance and heart rate variability) and endocrine (salivary cortisol) responses to acute stress versus a control task	Skin conductance and cortisol responses to stress were buffered by mastery, such that women with high mastery showed no differences in their responses to the stress task compared to a control task. Women with low mastery exhibited higher reactivity to the stress task compared to the control task. There was no moderating effect of mastery on heart rate variability (HRV).	Cortisol: d = .97 (Low Mastery) d = .28 (High Mastery) Skin Conductance: d = .42 (Low Mastery) d = .41 (High Mastery) HRV: (insufficient information to calculate)
Pham et al., 2001	96 undergraduates, mean age 20 years	Cross- sectional	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale	Blood pressure reactivity to tasks designed to evoke the aspects of college that are predictable, unpredictable, or neutral	Mastery was unassociated with blood pressure reactivity in all tasks.	Insufficient information to calculate effect size
Roepke et al., 2008	69 elderly spousal Alzheimer caregivers, age ≥ 55 years	Cross- sectional	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale	Norepinephrine reactivity to stress	Mastery was significantly and negatively associated with norepinephrine reactivity to acute stress.	d = −.52
Younger et al., 2008	73 men and women with rheumatoid arthritis, ages of 23- 81	Prospective laboratory study	Personal Mastery	Pearlin and Schooler Mastery Scale; items were divided into 2 components: fatalism and control	Resting blood pressure and blood pressure reactivity to laboratory stressor tasks	Those scoring high on the control component had lower mean arterial pressure at rest compared to those with low control. However, those with high control also exhibited higher blood pressure reactivity to stress compared to those with low control.	d = −.65 (resting MAP) d = .94 (MAP reactivity to stress)

Note. CVD = cardiovascular disease