Four experiments were performed to test the behavioral effects of REM deprivation on rats. Two studies of avoidance learning showed that shuttle avoidance and runway avoidance were unaffected by REM deprivation. REM deprivation produced an enhancement of activity, and the addition of periodic shock demonstrated a failure of adaptation for REM‐deprived subjects.
These data were interpreted as indicating that REM deprivation produces motivational effects on rat behavior and that electric shock‐induced pain and REM deprivation interact to change activity patterns. It was concluded that the findings of the present experiment can be explained most parsimoniously in terms of increased sensitivity of REM‐deprived subjects to environmental stimulation.
The relations between general and specific trait anxiety tests and fear measures in three actual situations were investigated. Both types of test were administered to 76 undergraduate females early in the semester. Later, each subject was exposed to each situation, where observer's ratings, behavioral, and subjective fear measures were obtained. The results indicate that the specific tests were clearly superior to the general ones in predicting fear of snakes but only slightly superior in predicting fear of heights and darkness. It was concluded that the overall superiority of the specific measures supported the current trend toward situation specificity in personality assessment. The roles played by threat to self-esteem, the form of the general trail anxiety measure, and sensation seeking are also discussed.Most attempts to measure anxiety have begun with the assumption that it is a trait, that is, an enduring disposition of a person to act in a reliable manner in a wide variety of situations (Allport, 1937). For example, Taylor's (1953) Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS) was intended to measure a person's characteristic level of anxiety, or drive, which was thought to be relatively constant over time and across situations.Recently, the trait concept of anxiety has been questioned. Mischel (1968) has argued that trait tests lack predictive validity because they do not take into account the situational specificity of behavior. Spielberger (1966, 1969), Houston andHodges (1970), and Katkin (1966) have found trait anxiety (A-Trait) to be unrelated to autonomic response and performance measures in stressful situations. Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene (1970) noted that his A-Trait scale (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; STAI) predicted state anxiety (A-This report is based on a thesis submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MA degree from the University of Delaware. The authors would like to thank the following students for their work as experimenters in the present study:
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