Cardiovascular effects of social evaluation, evaluator status,
and monetary reward were examined in participants presented
with a challenge that allowed them to work as hard as they pleased
(unfixed conditions) or called for a low level of effort (fixed
conditions). In Experiment 1, evaluation was found to potentiate
systolic pressure and heart rate responses insofar as the evaluator
had status where the challenge was unfixed, but to have no impact
on the responses where the challenge was fixed. In Experiment
2, reward value was found to potentiate the responses where
the challenge was unfixed, but not where it was fixed. The main
findings confirm and extend results from a previous experiment,
and broaden the base of empirical support for the suggestion
that active coping will be proportional to success importance
where performance is unconstrained.