J. Alexander Dale

Benefits of Humor in Reduction of Threat-Induced Anxiety

The benefits of humor in reducing anxiety were investigated in a laboratory study, in which subjects were falsely led to believe they would receive a shock in 12 min. Participants were 53 undergraduate students with either high or low sense of humor as measured by the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire of Martin and Lefcourt (1984). During the anticipatory period, subjects listened to either a humorous tape, a nonhumorous tape, or no tape. Dependent variables were repeated measures of self-reported anxiety, heart rate, and zygomatic facial activity. Anxiety increased over the anticipatory period, as predicted. A significant interaction between condition and time indicated that subjects from the humor condition consistently rated themselves as less anxious and reported less increase in stress as the shock approached. A three-way interaction concentrating on the final 3 min. indicated a tendency for subjects with low sense of humor to have higher heart rates in the no-tape condition than in the humorous or nonhumorous tape conditions. Analysis for zygomatic activity indicated more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor and by subjects in the humor condition. Also, the humorous tape elicited more smiling by subjects with high sense of humor.

Effect of Exposure to Humorous Stimuli on Induced Depression

In testing the hypothesis that exposure to humor may be used to relieve the symptoms of depression, 38 female undergraduates were shown depressive slides of the Velten (1968) mood statements and then assigned to one of three groups. One group heard a humorous audiotape, the second group heard a nonhumorous tape, while a third waiting control heard no tape. Heart rate and zygomatic (smile) and corrugator (frown) muscle tensions were recorded during slide and tape presentations. The Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, administered before and after slide and tape presentations, showed depression induction was successful. Only the humor group decreased depression scores to the preexperimental baseline, although both the humor and waiting groups showed significant decreases in depression scores after the treatment. Zygomatic muscle tension was greater during the humor treatment than other treatments. Heart rate decreased across depression induction for the waiting control only, but increased during the humor and nonhumor treatments. Seven women, who were not included in the above analysis because their initial MAACL depression scores were at least one SD above the mean, showed a paradoxical decrease in depression scores after the depression induction. Implications of the results as they relate to possible interventions for depression are discussed.

Effects of Humorous Stimuli and Sense of Humor on Discomfort

The effects of humor on increasing discomfort thresholds were tested with Transcutaneous End Nerve Stimulation (TENS). Undergraduate students (n = 31) with high or low scores on Martin and Lefcourts Situational Humor Questionnaire were randomly assigned to a humor or nonhumor condition. Discomfort thresholds for TENS were assessed before and during treatment. There was a significant increase in discomfort thresholds in the humorous treatment compared to the nonhumorous condition. Evidence was found for subjects to smile “wryly” (an increase in zygomatic and corrugator tensions) more during humorous stimuli than nonhumorous stimuli when they were waiting to be stimulated with the TENS.

Interactive effects of the affect quality and directional focus of mental imagery on pain analgesia.

College students (25 men and 25 women) were randomly assigned (within sex) to each of the 4 factorial groups, based on manipulation of affect quality (positive vs. negative) and directional focus (internal vs. external) of mental imagery, and to a control group receiving no manipulation. Both imagery variables had a significant impact on pain tolerance and ratings during a cold-pressor test with positive affect and external imagery producing greater analgesia than their counterpart conditions. Positive affect imagery combined with external imagery resulted in the lowest reported pain amongst the groups. However, self-reported mood descriptors did not consistently parallel the pain tolerance and rating data. Likewise, although heart rate and skin potential responses increased during the cold pressor for the group as a whole, the only significant difference amongst the experimental groups was the relatively higher skin potential reactivity of the positive affect-external imagery group—possibly reflecting greater task engagement for this group. Seemingly, imagery in this situation operates primarily via cognitive, rather than via physiological mediators of the pain experience.

Depressive and elative mood inductions as a function of exaggerated versus contradictory facial expressions

Two studies concerned the relation between facial expression cognitive induction of mood and perception of mood in women undergraduates. In Exp. 1, 20 subjects were randomly assigned to a group who were instructed in exaggerated facial expressions (Demand Group) and 20 subjects were randomly assigned to a group who were not instructed (Nondemand Group). All subjects completed a modified Velten (1968) elation- and depression-induction sequence. Ratings of depression on the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist increased during the depression condition and decreased during the elation condition. Subjects made more facial expressions in the Demand Group than the Nondemand Group from electromyogram measures of the zygomatic and corrugator muscles and from corresponding action unit measures from visual scoring using the Facial Action Scoring System. Subjects who were instructed in the Demand Group rated their depression as more severe during the depression slides than the other group. No such effect was noted during the elation condition. In Exp. 2, 16 women were randomly assigned to a group who were instructed in facial expressions contradictory to those expected on the depression and elation tasks (Contradictory Expression Group). Another 16 women were randomly assigned to a group who were given no instructions about facial expressions (Nondemand Group). All subjects completed the depression- and elation-induction sequence mentioned in Exp. 1. No differences were reported between groups on the ratings of depression (MAACL) for the depression-induction or for the elation-induction but both groups rated depression higher after the depression condition and lower after the elation condition. Electromyographic and facial action scores verified that subjects in the Contradictory Expression Group were making the requested contradictory facial expressions during the mood-induction sequences. It was concluded that the primary influence on emotion came from the cognitive mood-induction sequences. Facial expressions only seem to modify the emotion in the case of depression being exacerbated by frowning. A contradictory facial expression did not affect the rating of an emotion.

NO RESPITE DURING SLEEP: HEART-RATE HYPERREACTIVITY TO RAPID EYE MOVEMENT SLEEP IN ANGRY MEN CLASSIFIED AS TYPE A

9 men scoring as Type A and Angry and 9 men scoring as Type B and Nonangry on the Jenkins Activity Survey and Spielbergers Trait Anger Expression completed a 1-min. mental arithmetic task and slept through 1 period of rapid eye movement. The Angry Type A scorers showed greater heart-rate increases from baseline to that during mental arithmetic and from nonrapid eye movements to periods of REM than the Nonangry Type B scorers. While the former showed equivalent reactivity to stressors while awake and asleep, the latter group showed less heart-rate reactivity during the period of REM than during mental arithmetic. Neither group yielded clear descriptions of their dreams, and no differences between groups were noted for ratings on aggressivity in dreams. It appears that Angry Type A scorers show cardiovascular hyperreactivity even when asleep in the lab.

Facial Action Patterns, Electromyography, and Moods in Response to an Insoluble Task as a Function of Sex and Sex-Role Differences

College students of either androgynous or sex-typed orientation were randomly assigned to either an insoluble concept-formation task or a solvable one. Posttreatment scores were compared for measures of dysphoric mood (Multiple Affect Adjective List), electromyographic responses (corrugator and zygomatic), and discrete facial responses (Facial Action Coding System). In Study 1, 18 androgynous women were compared to 16 feminine women; in Study 2, 16 androgynous men were compared to 16 masculine men. The insoluble task was associated with more corrugator activity (frowning) than the solvable task in both studies. Feminine women displayed more corrugator responses across both tasks than androgynous women. However, masculine men did not differ from androgynous men in over-all corrugator response activity. Androgynous women smiled more than feminine women on the facial action coding measure. Men subjected to the insoluble task reported significantly more anxiety, depression, and hostility. Masculine men scored higher on anxiety during the insoluble task than androgynous men, while the latter scored somewhat higher on anxiety in the other condition.

Comparison of Identification of Chinese versus English Words with Brief Exposures

The orthographic differences between Chinese and English should influence the identification of words in the two languages. This study compared the identification of 50 Chinese and 50 comparable English words by 17 Chinese and 17 English participants, respectively. For English words, correlation and analysis of variance indicated significant effects for frequency and letter count. For Chinese words, the same statistical analyses yielded a significant frequency effect. Both analyses also showed stroke count of the first Chinese character was not related to accuracy of identification, while the two analyses yielded inconsistent results concerning relationships between the stroke count of the second character and accuracy of identification. These studies did not employ a masking stimulus, and 5 msec. were enough to activate sensory memory of most Chinese words, while 10 msec. were needed for most English words. These differences were significant by Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.

A remote keyboard switch for the IBM PC/AT and compatibles

A relatively simple, remote keyboard switch for the IBM PC/AT and compatibles is discussed. It may be used to isolate a subject from an experimenter when the experimenter is controlling an experiment with the PC. The device, based on a 4066 CMOS, when used in conjunction with a monochrome monitor and a color monitor, enables the experimenter to switch, manually or programmatically (TTL), between the local monitor and the local keyboard and a remote monitor and a remote keyboard for presentation of stimuli and for recording of subject’s responses.

Concordance among self-regulated responses: Is self-regulatory ability a psychophysiological “trait”?

The purposes of this study were to examine whether or not self-regulation of physiological responses demonstrates day-to-day reliability, to determine the degree of individual subject consistency (or concordance) in the ability to self-regulate across several different physiological responses, and, finally, to explore the impact of biofeedback training on interresponse concordance. Twenty normal subjects participated in six bidirectional self-regulation sessions—the first and last sessions involving instructions only, and the remainder, biofeedback. Self-regulation scores consisted of the absolute difference between increase and decrease trial means. The average test-retest reliability coefficients (rs) for the self-regulation scores, across the four biofeedback sessions, were a highly significant .50, .68, .30, and .47 for EEG, EMG, HR, and SCL, respectively. By contrast, the average concordance among the self-regulation scores for the four feedback sessions, estimated by Kendalls coefficient of concordance, was a marginally significant 39% of the possible variance of the rank sums. This corresponds to an average between-responsers value only of .19. The concordance level from the initial no-feedback (i.e., instructions only) session was not significant. Multivariate concordance levels did increase during the first three feedback sessions, but declined at the fourth, and again was nonsignificant during the final no-feedback session. Among the individual self-regulation response pairings, only the EEG/EMG combination was consistently associated during the no-feedback sessions. The present results suggest that self-regulatory ability is neither a highly unitary “trait”-like phenomenon nor an entirely response-specific event, but may vary considerably as a function of subject factors, or the situational circumstances, under which it is measured.