Hostile mood and social strain during daily life: a test of the transactional model.

BACKGROUND Hostility is a multidimensional construct related to cardiovascular (CV) disease risk. Daily hostile mood and social interactions may precipitate stress-related CV responses in hostile individuals. PURPOSE Determine whether trait cognitive hostility best predicts daily hostile mood and social interactions relative to other trait hostility factors and explore the temporal links between these daily measures. METHODS One hundred seventy-one participants completed assessments of four trait hostility scales. Participants completed an electronic diary across 3 days, assessing current hostile mood and social interaction quality. RESULTS Multiple regression analyses revealed both affective and cognitive hostility to be significant predictors of daily hostile mood, and cognitive hostility alone to predict daily social strain. Additional analyses revealed previous social strain to predict elevated subsequent hostile mood. CONCLUSIONS Episodes of social strain may give rise to elevated hostile mood. Trait cognitive hostility may be an important factor in predicting daily social strain.