THE EFFECTS OF EXPERIMENTER ATTITUDES AND FEELINGS ON RESPONSE TO PAINFUL STIMULATION.

Abstract

The hypothesis was that the more positive the experimentor's (E's) attitude and expressed affect toward Ss receiving painful electric shock, the more positive would be their subjective experience and the greater their learning efficiency. E's attitude and expressed affect for three independent groups of 16 Ss each was positive, neutral, and negative, respectively. The principal dependent variables were paired-associates learning, recall, and postexperimental subjective ratings of hostility and anxiety. Significant differences between the positive and negative groups on learning, recall, and hostility were in the predicted direction. The subjective ratings of hostility and the learning and recall measures supported the notion that the positive and negative groups conceptualized and responded to the painful stimulation in a different way. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1964
Accession Number
AD0601413

Entities

People

  • Carroll E. Izard
  • William J. Livsey

Organizations

  • Vanderbilt University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Behavior And Behavior Mechanisms
  • Efficiency
  • Hostility
  • Human Behavior
  • Human Emotions
  • Learning

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Organizational Psychology.