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The effect of a threatening context upon motivation and task‐induced physiological changes
Author(s) -
Svebak Sven,
Storfjell Olger,
Dalen Knut
Publication year - 1982
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.2044-8295.1982.tb01832.x
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , tonic (physiology) , context (archaeology) , task (project management) , heart rate , shock (circulatory) , developmental psychology , audiology , neuroscience , medicine , blood pressure , paleontology , management , economics , biology
The effect of a threatening context upon tonic task‐induced physiological changes was tested in an experiment where 14 male subjects performed a continuous perceptual motor task for 150 seconds, once with and once without threat of aversive electric shock (counterbalanced order). Results indicated that task‐irrelevant muscular tension increased and skin temperature decreased over the course of a task, and these gradients were steeper with threat than for the no‐threat treatment. Initial heart‐rate increase was marked for the threat condition. For respiration, a trend parallel to muscular gradients emerged with no‐threat as contrasted with a parallel respiratory‐cardiac activation with threat. Subjects' ratings on items reflecting self‐perception responded to the threat manipulation, but ratings on items reflecting task perception remained unaffected.