Implications of agency and communion for patient and spouse adjustment to a first coronary event.

The present study examined the effects of agency and communion on psychological adjustment to a 1st coronary event. Patients were interviewed about agency and communion and psychological adjustment in the hospital shortly before discharge (Time 1) and then reinterviewed along with spouses in their homes 3 months after discharge (Time 2). It was hypothesized that the extreme agentic orientation (unmitigated agency) and the extreme communal orientation (unmitigated communion) would be associated with poor adjustment for patients and spouses but that agency would promote self adjustment and communion would promote partner adjustment. In general, results confirmed predictions. It was suggested that the most distressed couples consist of a patient high in unmitigated agency and a spouse high in unmitigated communion. Although patients in such couples did not evidence the most distress, spouses did.