How affiliation affects stress in fear and anxiety situations.

Abstract

In this study I have attempted to determine why the presence of calm others reduces one's arousal in a fear situation but intensifies one's arousal in an anxiety situation. In the fear situation, the person anticipated receiving a physically painful stimulus, whereas in the anxiety condition, the person anticipated receiving an innocuous but embarrassing stimulus. The results of three experiments indicated that (a) a person stressed by fear context only undergoes stress reduction with a calm other present if he can look at the calm other; (b) the mere presence of a co-participant is stress inducing for a person stressed by an anxiety context; (c) the stressed fear person directs attention outward toward impinging environmental stimuli, whereas the highly aroused anxiety person does not or cannot do so. It was argued that stressed fear persons are able to model a calm co-participant because their attention is directed outward, whereas stressed anxiety persons cannot model a calm co-participant because their attention is turned inward. Some ideas are offered as to how a calm model may be able to serve as a stress preventer for a person in an anxiety situation.