Premium
RIGIDITY, DRIVE AND CONDITIONING IN NEUROTICS *
Author(s) -
PAYNE R. W.,
NETLEY C. T.,
SLOANE R. B.
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1967.tb01064.x
Subject(s) - psychology , neuroticism , rigidity (electromagnetism) , conditioning , anxiety , audiology , arousal , personality , heart rate , developmental psychology , social psychology , blood pressure , psychiatry , medicine , mathematics , structural engineering , engineering , radiology , statistics
Four of Brengelmann's questionnaire measures of rigidity, Brengelmann's Drive Scale, the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Maudsley Personality Inventory and the Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale, were given to thirty neurotic and thirty normal female subjects. In the first of two conditioning experiments, the eyeblink response was conditioned to a tone, an air puff being the UCS. In the second, the finger flexion reaction to an unavoidable electric shock was conditioned to a tone. GSR and heart‐rate responses were measured simultaneously. Brengelmann's previous findings that the rigidity questionnaire scores were significantly correlated with drive, anxiety and neuroticism questionnaire measure were confirmed. However, the predicted relations between rigidity and four of Malmo's physiological measures of drive (arousal) were not found. Although conditioning was clearly obtained, Brengelmann and Field's finding that eyeblink conditionability and questionnaire rigidity are related was not verified, nor did the conditioned finger response correlate with these rigidity measures. The data suggested that, for the GSR and heart‐rate responses, only ‘pseudo‐conditioning’ was obtained. The possible implications of this last finding are discussed.