Social competence interview for assessing physiological reactivity in adolescents.

Difficulties in predicting "real life" physiological variation from responses to controlled stress tasks suggest the need for more ecologically valid laboratory challenges. The Social Competence Interview (SCI) measures physiological changes elicited by re-experiencing a life situation in which a valued striving was unexpectedly hindered. The 14-minute interview yields data on subjects' goals, skills, problem-solving strategies, and social resources. We compared the SCI to video game (VG), mirror drawing (MD), and mental arithmetic (MA) in a racially balanced sample of 260 adolescents (age 14 to 15 years). Blood pressure changes during SCI exceeded those during the other tasks, and were unaffected by race or gender. Blood pressure responses to SCI correlated with responses to MA and MD but appeared to capture a unique domain of social reactivity. Test-retest correlations over 6 months in a random subsample of 27 subjects showed that blood pressure reactivity to SCI and other tasks was reproducible. Intrasubject analyses of responses to the different tasks disclosed subgroups of consistently high and consistently low responders who may be at higher or lower risk. The SCI is not threatening and was rated by subjects as less frustrating or demanding than MD or MA. Its demonstrated effectiveness when administered by several different interviewers suggests the SCI is a promising technique for large scale studies of younger populations.