Israel Posner

Diet, cigarette smoking, stressful life events, and subjective feelings of stress

A study of 133 workers in an educational institution showed that poor nutritional habits and cigarette smoking were associated with greater subjective stress.

Stress scores of workers by sex and age.

Claims are often made about the stressiul nature of particular occupations, but there are few comparative data on the stress of various occupations. W e have administered a battery of eight stress tests devised by Girdano and Everly (1979) to 557 workers in seven occupations. Tests were life events, frustration level, work overload, boredom/loneliness, poor nutrition, lack of self-confidence, Type A behavior, and anxious reactivity. The 291 men and 266 women of M,,, 38.6 yr. (SD = 10.9 yr.) were police officers, welfare workers, casino floorpersons, employees for the gas company, hospital employees, workers for the county, and college students. In this paper we present for these 557 workers the stress profiles by sex, age, and occ~pa t ion .~ Note p A 0.05 in each case. Sex differences appeared on two of the scales. Women obtained higher scores than men on the recent stressful life events scale ( t = 3.74) and higher scores on anxious reactivity ( t = 3.13). Age differences were found on four scales. In general, scores on the stressful life events scale decreased with age (F3,s.s = 16.51) as did scores on the scales of anxious reactivity (1;3.ss3 = 5.02) and Type A behavior ( F 3 , , 3 1 = 2.87). For the scale of poor nutrition, scores peaked for those in their 30s and 40s (F3 ,G30 = 3.40). Over-all, no one occupational group scored consistently higher or consistently lower on the bartery of tests. Furthermore, all of the mean scores were in the normal range of scores.

Arousal of sexual and aggressive contact by exposure to stressors in albino rats.

Since certain forms of aggressive and sexual activity are associated with elevated adrenal steroid activity, the hypothesis explored here was whether subjection to a stressful environment which is known to elevate adrenal output would arouse both sexual and aggressive behavior. Accordingly, 24 male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to either physical restraint and heat or a nonstress control environment for 13 days. Following this treatment Ss were tested for sexual and aggressive behavior. As predicted, the stressed Ss showed increased levels of ano-genital sniffing of an estrus female, as well as increased intermale aggressiveness.

Discriminative control of interspecific killing in hungry and satiated rats

Hungry and satiated killer Long-Evans rats were exposed to two species of prey, mice and frogs. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the rats learned to discriminate between prey when attacks upon one of the prey were punished by electric shocks and attacks upon the alternative were not punished. Thus, killing of the “dangerous” prey was suppressed, while killing of the alternative, “safe” prey continued. However, in Experiment 2—in which the consequences of killing the prey differed in that one was allowed to be eaten following a kill but the other was not—no evidence of discriminative attack resulted. Hungry and satiated rats did not differ in their responsiveness toward prey as objects of attack, but hungry killers were more responsive to prey as food, thus demonstrating a dissociation of killing and eating control.

Effects of d-amphetamine and pilocarpine on the mouse-killing response of hungry and satiated rats

Two experiments examined some relationships between feeding schedule and two psychoactive drugs on the mouse-killing response in rats. Experiment 1 showed that the combination of a high dose of d-amphetamine (2.00 mg/kg) and food satiation effectively suppresses killing while either factor alone does not. Experiment 2 showed that the combination of a high dose of pilocarpine (30 mg/kg) and food deprivation induces a considerable percentage of Sprague-Dawley rats to kill mice while either variable alone does not.

STRESS IN NURSES AND OTHER WORKING FEMALES

opinion. In the course of various training workshops on management of stress, an experimental stress profile (Girdano & Everly, 1979) was administered anonymously to 266 females (M.,. 36.6, SD = 11.9) who worked for a public utility company, hospitals, welfare agencies, casinos, county administrative offices, and college classes. This profile included self-re~ort measures of recent stressful life events (from Holrnes and Rahes Scale), frustration level, time pressure, boredom, bad nutritional habits, self-perception,

Stress management training for hospital supervisory personnel.

The overall goal of Stress Management Training is the re-orientation of peoples typical stress reaction habits into new, more rational and assertive patterns of problem-solving. Participants gain new insights into what stress is and how it affects them. They learn skills which reduce stress to nondamaging levels. They learn to use their minds to productively solve problems and to manage their personal and professional lives to a better end.

Effects of Combining Pilocarpine, D-Amphetamine, and Either a Free Feeding Schedule or Cyclic Food Deprivation on Mouse Killing by Rats

The combination of a drug which suppresses mouse killing by rats (d-amphetamine) , a drug which activates mouse killing (pilocarpine), and either ad-lib food or a 24-hour cyclic food deprivation schedule were examined for their effects on the mouse-killing response by rats (N = 53). Results showed that the presence of d-amphetamine prevented the activating effects of pilocarpine in rats with a fairly high killing propensity regardless of whether they were on the ad-lib food or the deprivation schedule. The study suggests that a drug which affects both eating behavior and mouse killing is more effective in determining behavioral outcomes than a drug which affects only mouse killing.