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Culture / Ethnicity / Race

(PS10-33) John Henryism Moderating the Effect of Emotion Suppression on Blood Pressure in High Achieving Adolescents of Color

Saturday, November 16, 2024
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST
Location: Franklin Hall, Level 4, Marriott Downtown
Abstract Text: Emotion suppression (ES) leads to decreased positive emotion and increased sympathetic nervous system activation in the lab (Gross, 2014) and increased risk of internalizing symptoms among youth in prospective studies (Gross & Cassidy, 2019). However, there is limited research on the relationship between ES and health outcomes such as blood pressure (BP) among youth. Minoritized students who achieve success despite facing adversity are thought to adopt a striving persistent behavioral style which can encompass ES in ways that promote their academic resilience but may have costs to their health  in the long-term (Doan et al., 2022). John Henryism is a coping strategy in which minoritized individuals continuously expend high levels of effort to cope with stress (James et al, 1994) and is linked to poor cardiovascular health and stress-related disorders among adults. The current study examined whether adolescent endorsement of John Henryism might exacerbate the link between ES on blood pressure among high achieving adolescents of color. This study drew data from a larger school based prevention trial which enrolled 10th and 11th grade students of color who were eligible for inclusion based on their GPA. Participants (n = 298; M age 16.08) were from seven high schools serving diverse communities and included Hispanic (58.2%), Asian American (25.7%), Biracial or Multiracial (12.6%), and African American (2.0%) adolescents. At baseline, participants completed the John Henryism Active Coping Scale (James et al., 1987) and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (Gullone and Taffe, 2012) and researchers obtained resting systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) measurements utilizing the OMRON 5 Series Wireless Upper Arm Blood Pressure Monitor (Model BP7250). Moderation analysis was performed using SPSS PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2022). Results from our moderation model revealed a significant interaction effect (𝛽 = .031, t = 2.228, 95% CI [.004,.059], p = .027) such that the association between ES and DBP was positive and significant among participants who scored high on JH (SE = 2.146, 95% CI [.026,.598], p = .033), whereas simple effects were not significant for students endorsing low to moderate levels of JH. These findings suggest that emotion suppression may be particularly linked to cardiovascular health when it occurs in the context of sustained high effort coping characterized by JH. The combination of suppressing one’s emotions and pushing oneself to work beyond one’s limits may be particularly detrimental to health and may characterize the behavioral phenotype of striving persistent behavioral style which has been posited to contribute to academic resilience but also emerging health inequities among socially mobile minoritized individuals. Future research will examine the moderating effects of JH longitudinally in relation to ES and BP among high achieving minoritized youth.