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Direct manipulation of physiological arousal in induced anxiety therapy ‐ biofeedback approach
Author(s) -
Sappington A. A.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(197710)33:4<1070::aid-jclp2270330434>3.0.co;2-w
Subject(s) - arousal , biofeedback , anxiety , psychology , affect (linguistics) , heart rate , trait anxiety , clinical psychology , blood pressure , psychiatry , medicine , communication , social psychology
This study investigated the role of physiological arousal in the affect induction phase of Induced Anxiety therapy by using biofeedback to facilitate arousal. Twenty‐one college students who were suffering from free‐floating anxiety were assigned randomly to one of three groups: (1) a no‐treatment control group simply completed the measures before and after therapy; (2) a conventional Induced Anxiety group went through five standard Induced Anxiety sessions; and (3) a biofeedback Induced Anxiety group went through a similar procedure except that biofeedback was used in the affect induction phase to facilitate heart rate increase. It was found that the biofeedback procedure did result in a greater heart rate increase during the affect induction phase arousal than did the conventional procedure (0.01 level of significance), but did not facilitate subjective emotional arousal. Biofeedback Induced Anxiety resulted in a greater reduction of trait anxiety as measured by the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List than did the no‐treatment group or the conventional Induced Anxiety group. The conventional Induced Anxiety group did not differ significantly from the no‐treatment control group.