A Model for the Study of Some Determiners of Psychological Stress: Initial Experimental Research.

A four-choice discrimination task and various levels of electric shock have been used to investigate possible determiners of anticipatory stress, and individual differences in performance decrements resulting from such stress. In general, disruption increases as the threatening event comes closer, as the perceived probability of its occurrence becomes greater, and as the perceived degree of unpleasantness is increased. Whether or not the anticipated unpleasant event really occurred in previous exposures influences behavior in subsequent exposures. There are several indications that anticipatory physical threat stress has a curvilinear relationship to performance, with low amounts of threat enhancing performance. There were wide individual differences in susceptibility to performance disruption by threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]