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CONSISTENCY OF PERFORMANCE CHANGE AND AUTONOMIC RESPONSE AS A FUNCTION OF EXPRESSED ATTITUDE TOWARD A SPECIFIC STRESS SITUATION
Author(s) -
Pearson David W.,
Thackray Richard I.
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1970.tb02245.x
Subject(s) - psychology , anxiety , heart rate , shock (circulatory) , personality , consistency (knowledge bases) , task (project management) , perception , developmental psychology , heart rate variability , cognition , clinical psychology , social psychology , audiology , blood pressure , medicine , geometry , mathematics , management , neuroscience , psychiatry , economics , radiology
A persistent problem in stress research has been that some individuals may show impairment, while others show improvement or no change in performance under stress. Attempts to relate this variance in performance to general anxiety or other personality variables have generally not been too successful. Based upon responses to a fear of shock item in an attitude questionnaire, S s were classified as “high fear of shock” or “low fear of shock” types. Half of the S s in each group were assigned a perceptual‐motor task; the others were assigned a cognitive‐interference task. After training, all S s were informed that they would be required to maintain their training performance levels in a situation in which they would be shocked if performance declined. Performance and heart rate measures taken during training were compared with the same measures taken under the threat‐of‐shock conditions. Results indicate significant differences between groups in both performance and physiological activity with “high fear of shock” S s exhibiting relatively greater performance impairment and increased heart rate.