Showing papers in "Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1980"

Alcohol and stress response dampening: Pharmacological effects, expectancy, and tension reduction.

Abstract: Alcohol consumption and alcohol expectation were separately evaluated in terms of effects on psychophysiol ogical levels prior to stress and reduction of the magnitude of response to stress. Ninety-six male, experienced drinkers were assigned to eight conditions in a between-subjects design in which beverage consumed (alcohol or tonic), beverage expected (alcohol or tonic), and stressor (self-disclosing speech or threat of shock) were manipulated. Dosage for subjects receiving alcohol was 1 g ethanol/kg body weight. Results indicated strong effects of alcohol consumption on prestress levels, consisting of accelerated heart rate (HR), lower HR variability, higher skin conductance, longer pulse transmission time (PTT), higher "cheerfulness" and lower "anxiety" (ANX). This pattern of effects is related to previous unsuccessful attempts to specify a simple relationship between alcohol consumption and "tension." In addition, alcohol consumption significantly reduced the magnitude of the HR, PTT, and ANX responses of subjects to the stressors. No effects attributable to alcohol expectation were found. These results are integrated with the existing literature concerned with pharmacological and cognitive effects of alcohol as they pertain to stress, psychophysiological responses to stress, and "tension reduction." The relationship between alcohol and iological response to stressful stimuli. This stress has long been a concern in the alcohol reduction in response magnitude has been research literature. It is ironic that after ex- demonstrated for the electrodermal response tensive study, little consensus exists as to to loud tones (Carpenter, 1957; Greenberg & the nature of this relationship. Similarly, it Carpenter, 1957), the electrodermal response is not uncommon for social drinkers to as- to verbal stimuli (Coopersmith, 1964; Liesert that alcohol has a beneficial action vis- nert & Traxel, 1959), and the cardiac rea-vis stress without being able to precisely sponse to loud tones (Lehrer & Taylor, formulate the nature of this action. 1974). It should be noted that these studies used simple laboratory stressors such as Effects of Alcohol on Response to Stress tones and high affect words. Studies that ,. , , used "real-life" stressors and included meaA number of studies have shown that sures of aflfective responses will be discussed alcohol reduces the magnitude of the physlater when the role of cognitive mediators

Individual differences in self-control behaviors and tolerance of painful stimulation.

Abstract: Studied the relation between Ss' general repertoire of self-control behaviors and their ability to tolerate a cold pressor. In Exp I, with 40 undergraduate Ss, it was found that Ss who were instructed to think of a pleasant event while exposed to a cold pain tolerated that pain longer than a control group, thus replicating previous findings. In Exp II, with 54 undergraduate Ss, one experimental group was required to spend 5 min in self-planning of strategies to cope with the upcoming pain, and a 2nd group was merely informed on the effectiveness of self-control methods in coping with pain. Both groups did not show longer durations than Ss in a control group who were not encouraged to employ their own self-control methods. High self-control (HSC) Ss across the various treatment conditions consistently tolerated the cold pressor longer than low self-control Ss. HSC Ss also reported using self-control methods more often and more effectively while exposed to the cold pressor. The 2 self-control groups did not differ in their ratings of pain intensity. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Universal Versus Personal Helplessness in Depression: Belief in Uncontrollability or Incompetence?

Abstract: The learned helplessness model of depression predicts that depressed individuals believe outcomes are more response independent than do nondepressed individuals in a skill situation. The present study assessed whether depressives' cognitive distortions are specific to their belief about their own skilled action or are a result of a general belief in uncontrollabi lity in the world. Changes in expectancies following success and failure in skill and chance tasks were examined in 32 depressed and 32 nondepressed college students who either performed themselves or observed a confederate perform a pair of tasks. In the skill task, depressed subjects showed significantly smaller changes in expectancy than nondepressed subjects when estimating the probability of their own success. In contrast, depressed and nondepressed subjects did not differ when estimating the probability of another person's success on the identical skill task. We infer that depressed individuals view themselves as helpless in a skilled situation but do not view the situation itself as uncontrollable. The results are discussed in terms of the reformulated learned helplessness model.

Learned helplessness as experimenter-induced failure and its alleviation with attentional redeployment.

Abstract: When it is recognized that laboratory studies of learned helplessness with huma n subjects are basically studies of experimenter-induced failure, the relevance of numerous previous studies of failure induction and of the theoretical models that generated them becomes apparent. The present study adopted the assump tion that cognitive interference associated wit h anxiety is the source of the performance decrement s observe d i n helplessness studies . For susceptibl e subjects, failure experiences elicit a task-irrelevant, negative focus on self. As predicted from such a model, attentional redeployment in the form of an imagin ation exercise eliminated the impairment o f performance that typically follow s a helplessness induction. However, it was found that the effectiveness of the exercise depended on provision of a rationale to the subjects. As predicted, it was also found that subjects who received the exercise and rationale in the absence of a failure induction became debilitated, although this effect wa s only marginally significant. The results are discussed in terms of a cognitiveattentional interpretation of learned helplessness studies, and the likely role of demand characteristics i s noted. The experimental manipulations typically employed i n learned helplessnes s studie s with human subjects reliably produce impairment of subsequent task performanc e (Abramson, Seligman , & Teasdale, 1978) . However, Buchwald , Coyne , an d Col e (1978) argued that multiple meanings given to the term "learned helplessness" hav e obscured problems in the model's explanation for this impairment. The term has been simultaneously applie d t o (a) any demonstration o f impaired performance by subjects exposed to such a manipulation, (b) the specific underlying cognitive and motivational deficits postulated by the model, and (c ) the hypothetical expectation tha t reinforcement i s not contingen t upon response. Consequently , investigators have

Alcohol and Social Anxiety in Males: Behavioral, Cognitive, and Physiological Effects

Abstract: As a test of the tension reduction hypothesis (TRH) of alcohol consumption, two studies were conducted to determine the effects of alcohol on heterosexual social anxiety. In Study 1 a clinical population of socially anxious males first drank .0 or .5 ml of pure ethanol/kg of body weight and then interacted with a female confederate. Expectancies about alcohol consumption and its effects were manipulated by using both a placebo beverage and instructional sets about the positive or negative effects of alcohol. Physiological, cognitive/selfreport, and behavioral measures indicated that alcohol produced a marked impairment in the shy subjects on a number of behavioral and self-report measures while not appreciably affecting physiological responses. Study 2 employed a sample of undergraduate males and three dosages of alcohol (.0, ,33, and .75 ml/kg). Once again alcohol impaired both behavioral performance and self-report ratings. In addition, the high-dosage alcohol group experienced greater sustained cardiac acceleration as a function of the social interaction than did the other two groups, suggesting the possibility of an alcohol-stress functional relationship. Taken collectively, this sequence of studies disconfirms the utility of a global TRH in explaining the psychological and physiological effects of alcohol ingestion.