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Browsing by Author "Glover, Carl Bruce"

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    Differential responsiveness of repressors and sensitizers to stress
    Glover, Carl Bruce (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1976)
    Repressors and sensitizers were subjected to either electric shock or failure instructions in a verbal learning situation. Heart rate, skin conductance, and state anxiety data were obtained for a 10-min anticipatory period prior to learning as well as for the learning period itself. Results showed no support for Scarpetti's (1973) hypothesis that repressors should show more physiological reactivity than sensitizers but report less state anxiety in the anticipation of stress as opposed to the experience of stress. Rather, the data demonstrated that it is the actual experience of stressful stimuli, and not the threat or anticipation of such stimuli, which repressors and sensitizers find behaviorally disruptive. This disruption was grossly reflected in heart rate and state anxiety data, but not in skin conductance. Paradoxically, the sensitizer-failure (SF) and repressor-pain (RP) groups, which made relatively more errors during learning, showed less arousal in peak skin resistance in the anticipation of stress. This was interpreted in terms of a breakdown of defensive strategy under the actual experience of stress. Moreover, most groups showed a mean trend toward less variability in skin resistance during the learning period, which was considered to reflect an increase in attending behavior rather than arousal. Lastly, the finding of more errors by the SF and RP groups during learning and the failure of the RP group to report this disruption as state anxiety, was similar to results obtained by Glover and Cravens (1974) for high and low trait-anxious subjects. This was regarded as behavioral support for the consistent high positive correlations found between measures or the two personality dimensions.
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    Manifest anxiety, stress, and learning: a test of Saltz's hypothesis
    Glover, Carl Bruce (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1973)
    Saltz (1970) has hypothesized that the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) is an index to the types of situations that constitute stress for individuals scoring at the extremes of the scale. Specifically, the behavior of individuals scoring as low-anxious on the MAS is disrupted by pain-induced stress but not necessarily by failure-induced stress, while the behavior of individuals scoring as high-anxious on the MAS is disrupted by failure-induced stress but not necessarily by pain-induced stress. This hypothesis is in contradiction to the traditional drive theory interpretation of the MAS, which considers the MAS to be a measure of drive level. The present study attempted to empirically test these rival views of the measurement characteristics of the MAS in a verbal learning situation. Results of the experiment provided support for Saltz's hypothesis, with both low-anxious shocked subjects (Ss) and high-anxious failure Ss making significantly more errors than all other groups on paired-associates in which the correct response was dominant. No significant differences in performance were found on paired-associates in which the incorrect response was dominant, and there were no significant differences in the levels of shock that pain-stress Ss agreed to take. Scores on the A-State Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) reflected performance differences for high-anxious groups but not for low-anxious groups. Possible reasons for failure to find each of these differences are discussed.