Premium
EFFECTS OF A NOVEL SITUATION AND OF ANXIETY ON TWO GROUPS OF DEPENDENCY BEHAVIOURS
Author(s) -
ROSENTHAL MIRIAM K.
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.tb01092.x
Subject(s) - habituation , psychology , anxiety , curiosity , dependency (uml) , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , systems engineering , engineering
The habituation of two groups of dependency behaviours in a novel situation was investigated under two levels of anxiety provocation. The two groups of dependency behaviours were ‘attention seeking’ and ‘proximity seeking’. Sixty‐four girls aged 3–5 were assigned to two experimental conditions: high and low anxiety. Each child was seen twice and each session lasted 30 min. Frequency of dependency behaviour was recorded by an observer according to previously defined behaviour categories. The principal findings were: (1) under high anxiety conditions frequency of attention seeking decreases with time (habituation of curiosity) and frequency of proximity seeking increases when there is a gradual increase in number of fear‐provoking elements; (2) under low anxiety conditions frequency of attention seeking decreases with time while only a negligible decrease of proximity seeking takes place; (3) long‐term habituation, over 3 or 4 weeks, does not occur for either kind of behaviour; (4) an unexpected interaction indicated that attention seeking decreases significantly faster under conditions of low anxiety than under conditions of high and sustained anxiety, although no main effect of anxiety on attention seeking was found. The results are interpreted in terms of elements in the situation provoking curiosity or anxiety.