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THE EFFECTS OF MOTIVES AND THE EGO DEFENSE
OF DENIAL ON DEFENSIVE PROCESSES

IN PERSON PERCEPTION

By

Avi Assor

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Psychology

1981

ABSTRACT

THE EFFECTS OF MOTIVES AND THE EGO DEFENSE
OF DENIAL ON DEFENSIVE PROCESSES
IN PERSON PERCEPTION

By

Avi Assor

The concept of a defensive process played an important role in
many major theories of personality, psychOpathology, and psychotherapy.
A defensive process was viewed by most theorists as consisting of the
fellowing three essential components: (1) arousal of anxiety following
the perception of a threatening stimulus; (2) defensive cognitive
activity involving the denial or diminution of the threatening aspects
of the stimulus; and (3) reduction in level of anxiety following the
defensive cognitive activity. Despite the importance of the concept
of a defensive process and despite the wide consensus regarding its
essential nature, the operation of a complete defensive process, includ-
ing all three essential components, has never been demonstrated
empirically. The major purpose of the present study was to demonstrate
the Operation of such a process. The specific phenomenon and pro-
cedure selected to demonstrate the hypothesized defensive process
involved exposure of dominance oriented individuals to motivationally
threatening target persons.

In addition to its primary purpose, the present study also pro-

vided an opportunity to examine the effects of the dependency motive and

Avi Assor

the ego defense of denial on perceivers emotional reactions to the
perception of motivational threats to their dominance and dependency
motives (i.e., first defensive component).

Fifty males, who were classified as high on dominance or on
dependency motivation and high or low on denial, were assigned to two
motivational threat conditions. In both conditions subjects observed
a video-tape of a dominant person working with a submissive person on
a rescue problem. However, in the "Dominance Threat" condition subjects
expected to evaluate and later work with the dominant person, whereas
in the "Dependency Threat" condition subjects expected to evaluate and
later work with the submissive target personnr Subjects' skin conductance
was monitored as they Observed and evaluated the target persons orally.
Subjects were classified as dominants or dependents on the basis of
their scores on the shortened version of the Dominance scale of the
CPI (Assor, Aronoff, & Messé, 1981) and the Succorance scale of the
EPPS (Edwards, 1959);, The ego defense of denial was assessed by means
of the Reversal scale of the DMI (Gleser 8 Ihilevitch, 1969). Subjects'
phasic electrodermal activity (EDA) served as an indicator of emotional
autonomic arousal and anxiety.

Results showed that, as predicted, a complete defensive process,
ineluding all three components, was evidenced for threatened dominance
‘ oriented subjects, who used the oral evaluation defensively. More
specifically, dominance oriented subjects showed an increase in phasic
EDA after they observed the motivationally threatening dominant target
person (i.e., first component), and after they used the evaluative
activity defensively to devalue the dominant target person (i.e., second
component) they indeed showed the expected relative reduction in phasic

EDA.

Avi Assor

Results also showed that, as predicted, dependency oriented sub-
jects responded with greater phasic EDA to the target persons who posed
a more severe threat to their dependency motive. As expected, the ego
defense of denial moderated the effects of threatened motives on auto-
nomic arousal. Thus, among subjects whose predominant motives were
threatened, those subjects who were high rather than low on denial
showed a higher level of phasic EDA.

The discussion underscored the theoretical significance of the
present research as the first investigation which demonstrated the
operation of a complete defensive process exPerimentally. Discussion
focused on the maladaptive consequences of the defensive cognitive
activity of devaluation, the importance of motives and ego defenses as
determinants of physiological stress reactions, the differential effect
of motives on covert emotional reactions versus overt behavior, and
the utility of the present findings in demonstrating the limitations of

Schachter's and Singer's (1962) theory of emotion.

To Tirtza

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people deserve thanks for their assistance in the preparation
of the dissertation. I wish to thank Dr. Joel Arnoff for his support,
advice, and guidance throughout my doctoral studies. I especially
appreciate Joel's emphasis on quality, his enthusiasm for intellectual
inquiry and psyChological research, and his willingness to take a great
deal of interest in my professional development and research activities
without trying to impose his own approach or research interests on me.

I wish to thank Dr. Lawrence Messé for his help throughout my graduate
studies. Larry provided an example of a critical, open-minded, serious,
yet not pompous, psychologist. My discussions with him improved the
quality of my research and helped to solve many difficult problems.

Joel's and Larry's thorough, thoughtful, prompt, and frequent feed-
back during the last stage of the dissertation project was particularly
valuable. Their advice on theoretical, methodological, and editorial
issues helped to improve the quality of the dissertation considerably
and their interest and encouragement helped to increase my motivation and
enthusiasm during the laborious writing and revising process.

I wish to thank Dr. Albert Rabin for his critique of the manuscript.
His comments helped to clarify a number of theoretical issues and improved
the clarity of the presentation. I wish to thank Dr. Hiram Fitzgerald
for introducing me to the basic principles and literature of psychophysiology,
and for his advice and comments regarding measurement issues in psycho-
physiology.

iii

I wish to thank Dr. Norman Kagan who allowed me to use his
laboratory, and introduced me to the practical aspects of psychophysio-
logical measurement. I greatly appreciate his generosity and I would
like to note that without his assistance this research would not have
been possible.

Much deserved thanks go to the actors who participated in the pre-
paration of the video-tape: Dennis Martin, Bruce Marr, Martin Winer,

Allen Seagul, and Tom Zaret. I especially want to acknowledge the co-
operation of Tom Zaret who agreed to undertake the preparation of a com-
pletely new video-tape after his first partner had to leave town prior to
the completion of the video—taping.

I wish to thank David Anderson, former T.V. technician of the Psychology
Department, for his generous assistance in producing the video-tapes. I
enjoyed working with Dave and I greatly appreciate his patience and per-
sistance.

Thanks are also due to the many undergraduate research assistants who
helped to administer the research instruments, conduct pilot testing,
record the physiological activity, and code the data: Jeff Levitt, Mark
Boegehold, Chris Carmel, Denise Mohelman, Joy Gooding, Scott Gooding,

Julie Endres, Jim Gordon, Mike Hoffman, and David Alvis. I appreciate
their persistance in the performance of tasks which were often onerous.

I wish to thank Dr. Steven Neinaber and Dr. Pene10pe Hale, my clinical
supervisors at the Psychology Department of Wyandotte General Hospital, fbr
their support of my request fbr a limited amount of research time. Steve's
and Penny's support and understanding made the completion of the disserta-

tion much easier than I expected.

iv

Finally, I want to thank Tirtza, my wife, for being a constant
source of strength and understanding, and fbr the invaluable help she

provided throughout the dissertation project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
LIST OF FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Emotionally Mediated Defensive Processes in Person
Perception: A General Introduction . . . . . .

Threatened Motives as Activators of Emotionally
Mediated Defensive Processes in Person Perception .

The Status of Threatened Motives as Activators of
Defensive Processes in Person Perception in Some
Major Theories of Personality. . . . . . .

The Effects of the Ego Defense of Denial on Emotionally
Mediated Defensive Processes . . . . . . . .

The Present Study. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Motives Chosen for Study: Dominance and
. Dependency. . . . . . . . . .
The Manipulation of the Level of Threat Posed by
Target Persons to the Dominance and Dependency
Motives. . . . . . . . . .
The Effects of the Ego Defense of Denial on
Emotional Arousal . . . . . . . . . . .
The Effects of the Dominance and Dependency Motives
on Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . .
The Effects of the Ego Defense of Denial an
Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reduction of Anxiety as a Function of Motive Related
Defensive Evaluation . . . . . . . . . .
A Note on the Measurement of Anxiety. . . . . .

Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hypotheses I. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hypotheses II . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hypotheses III . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II 0 MBTTIOD O I I O O O O O O I O O O O O O 0

Overview of the Study . . . . . . . . . . .

Subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
First Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vi

Page

ix

10
12

12

14
16
17
21

24
25

27
27
28
29
29

29
30

Chapter Page

Classification of Subjects to the Dominance and
Dependency Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Measurement of Ego Defenses . . . . 31
The Manipulation of Threat Posed by the Target Persons

to Motives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Controlling for Actor Effect . . . . . . . . . . 34
Design . . . . . . . . . 34

Setting and Apparatus During the Experimental Session. . 35
Procedure of the Experiment Session . . . . . . . 36
Arousing Subjects' Motives . . . . . . . . . . 44
Dependent Measures I . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

The Measurement of Emotional Autonomic Arousal . . . 45

The SF measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The SCR measures . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Dependent Measures II . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Evaluation Measures . . . . . . . . . . . 48
III. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SO

Hypothesis I: The Effects of Motives on Emotional

Autonomic Arousal in Response to Target Persons . . . SO
Hypothesis II: The Joint Effectsuof Motives and the

Ego Defense of Denial on Emotional Autonomic Arousal

in Response to Target Persons . . . . . S3
Hypothesis III: Relative Reduction in Emotional

Autonomic Arousal Following Motive Related

Defensive Evaluation . . . . . . . . . 56
The Effects of Motives and Denial on Evaluation Under

Threatening Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . 58

IV. DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Theoretical Significance of the Demonstration of a
Complete Defensive Process . . . . . . . . . . 60

Additional Theoretical Implications . . . . . . . 61

The Maladaptive Consequences of the Defensive

Cognitive Activity of Devaluation . . . . . 61
The Effects of Motives and Ego Defenses on Physio-

logical Stress Reactions . . . . . 63
The Differential Effect of Motives on Covert and.

Overt Behavior . . . . 65

The Limitations of Schachter' 5 Theory of Emotion . . 67

Explanation for the Lack of Interaction Effects on

Autonomic Arousal During the "Observe Tape" and "Final

Wait" Periods . . . . . . . 69
The Effects of Motives on Evaluation . . . . 70

vii

The Joint Effects of Motives and the Ego Defense of

Denial on Evaluation . . . . . . . . .
Defensive Versus Expressive Explanation of the
Ftflfims. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for
Future Research . . . . . . . . .
APPENDICES
Appendix
A.. Personality Questionnaires . . . . . . .

B. Evacuation Problem and Map . . . . . . .

C. Means, Standard Deviations, Minimum and Maximum Values
of Measures Employed in the Present Study

BIBLIOGRAPHY

viii

Page

71
73

76

80

103

106

107

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Adjective Pairs That Comprised the Semantic Differential
Scales of the Sociability Measure . . . . . . . . . 48

2. Adjective Pairs That Comprised the Semantic Differential
Scales of the Competence Measure . . . . . . . . . 49

3. Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat Interaction and
Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat by Reversal
Interaction for SF Measures During Four Periods. . . . . 51

4. Mean SF as a Function of Perceivers' Motives and Motiva-
tional Threat Conditions During Four Periods . . . . . 52

5. Mean SF as a Function of Perceivers' Motives, Reversal,
and Mbtivational Threat During Four Periods . . . . . 54

6. The Joint Effects of Motive of Perceiver and Motivational
Threat on the Correlations Between Favorability of
Evaluation and SCR Scores . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7. Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat Interaction
and Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat by
Reversal Interaction for Evaluation Measures . . . . . 59

8. Mean Evaluation Scores as a Function of Perceivers' Motives,
Reversal, and Motivational Threat . . . . . . . . . 59

C:1. Means, Standard Deviations, Minimum and Maximum Values of
Measures Employed in the Present Study . . . . . . . 106

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. A Sequence Chart of the Experimental Procedure . . . . . 37

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Emotionally Mediated Defensive Processes in Person
Perception: A General Introduction

Most personality theorists (e.g., Adler, 1927; Freud, 1936; Horney,
1945; Maslow, 1970; Murray, 1938; Rogers, 1951; Sullivan, 1948) have
assumed that perceivers' needs and wishes can influence their perception
and evaluation of other people through an emotionally mediated defensive
process. While these theorists differ in their specific definitions of
defensive processes, most of them agree on a few basic elements, which
were first described by Freud (1936). According to Freud (1936), a
defensive process is assumed to be activated by the perception of a
threatening stimulus, which arouses anxiety. If the perceivers think
that they cannot do anything to reduce the threat, then, some of them are
likely to engage in cognitive activities that are aimed at the denial or
diminution of the threatening aspects of the stimulus. This cognitive
activity results in a reduced level of anxiety, at least temporarily.

According to the above description, a defensive process consists
essentially of three basic components:

1. Arousal of anxiety--in response to the perception of a threaten-

ing stimulus.
2. Defensive cognitive activityy-aimed at the denial or diminution

of the threatening aspects of the stimulus.

3. Reduction in the level of anxiety--following the defensive cog-

 

nitive activity.

Despite the strong consensus among theorists regarding the
essential nature of defensive processes, not enough empirical evidence
is presently available to demonstrate that perceivers' needs influence
their perception and evaluation of other people through an emotionally
mediated defensive process. To summarize the state of research on this
problem, while many studies have demonstrated the existence of defensive
cognitive activity (component 2), no study has demonstrated the third
component (reduction in the level of anxiety) and only a few studies
have demonstrated the first component (arousal of anxiety). Moreover,
no research to date has demonstrated the existence and operation of all
three components or processes in response to the same threatening
stimulus.

The research that has addressed the question of defense most
directly is often referred to as the "New Look" studies (Eriksen, 1963,
1968). These investigations have demonstrated that perceivers' individ-
ual dispositions affect their recall of threatening stimuli in a manner
that appears defensive. Moreover, this work also yielded some evidence
that personal characteristics can affect the recognition of threatening
stimuli.

The "New Look" studies, however, did not demonstrate the existence
of emotionally mediated defensive process in person perception, primarily
for two reasons: (1) this research did not show that the cognitive activ-
ity was followed by a decrease in anxiety; and (2) in such work, the
threatening stimuli and the targets for defensive cognitive activity were
not people, but rather, words or unfinished tasks. In addition, with

some exceptions (e.g., McGinnes, 1949; Lazarus G McCleary, 1951), most

investigations did not establish that the exposure to the presumably
threatening stimuli actually increased perceivers' anxiety.

One minor limitation of the "New Look" studies as they apply to
person perception is that the threatened personal concerns were limited
to_aggression, sex, and self-esteem. From the point of view of person
perception, the inclusion for study of social motives such as dominance,
dependence, and affiliation might have been desirable because of the
potential impact of this type of motives on the pattern of social inter-
action and relations that perceivers might develop with the perceived
person.

In addition to the "New Look" studies, there were two other sets
of studies which demonstrated the impact of personal dispositions and
needs on defensive cognitive activity. The first group of studies
demonstrated that deprivation of physiological and psychological needs
resulted in defensive cognitive activity (e.g., Lazarus, Yousem, 8
Arenberg, 1953; McLelland 8 Atkinson, 1948; Murray, 1959; Sanford, 1936,
1937). The second set of studies demonstrated that psychological motives
and personality dispositions influenced person perception processes in a
manner that appeared defensive (e.g., Assor, Aronoff, 6 Messe', 1981;
Centers, 1971; Chance 6 Meaders, 1960; Jones, 1954; Jones 8 Daugherty,
1959; Thibaut & Reicken, 1955). However, both sets of investigations
produced no evidence to support the notion of arousal and reduction of
anxiety. In addition, the need deprivation research, like the "New Look"
studies, did not examine defensive cognitive activity that was directed
at other pe0ple.

The first component of the hypothesized defensive process--anxiety
arousal following the perception of a threatening stimulus--was demon-

strated by many studies. Within this area, a number of studies also

have demonstrated that subjects can be emotionally and physiologically
aroused if their social motives, enduring behavior patterns, or racial
preferences are threatened (e.g., Runkin & Campbell, 1955; Vidulich G
Krevanick, 1966; VOgel, Raymond, 8 Lazarus, 1959; Von Egeren, 1979a,
1979b). However, these studies did not demonstrate the existence of
defensive cognitive activity that operated to reduce emotional arousal.

The research that has come closesttx>demonstrating an emotionally
mediated defensive process in person perception was conducted by
Luborsky and his colleagues (Luborsky, Blinder, 8 Mackworth, 1963;
Luborsky, Blinder 6 Schimek, 1965). In that investigation, subjects'
tendencies to use the defenses of isolation and repression were measured
by a number of instruments. Then, in a separate session, subjects were
asked to look at pictures that were classified previously either as
sexually or aggressively threatening or as nonthreatening. As they
observed the pictures, subjects' electrodermal activity and eye fix-
ations on the pictures were monitored. Later, the subjects also were
asked to recall the pictures.

Luborsky et a1. (1963) reported that the threatening pictures were
associated with greater electrodermal activity than were the nonthreat-
ening pictures. In addition, subjects tended to show more avoidance
tendencies, in terms of both looking activity and recall, in re5ponse
to the pictures which were associated with greater electrodermal
activity.

In a further analysis of data from the same study, Luborsky et a1.
(1965) found that the defense of isolation was strikingly associated
with venturing to look around more, whereas the defense of repression
was associated with looking around less, and that "isolators" were better

than "repressors" in their recall of sexual content. In addition, they

also found that repression was positively correlated with electrodermal
activity for sexual pictures, but negatively correlated with electro-
dermal activity for nonthreatening stimuli.

Luborsky and his colleagues' research demonstrated the existence
and operation of the first two components of the emotionally mediated
defensive process. However, like many of the studies cited previously,
this research did not demonstrate the existence of the third component,
reduction in level of anxiety as a result of defensive cognitive activ—
ity. In addition, since the study investigated reactions to pictures
rather than to people with whom one expects to interact, the general-
izability of the findings to defensive reactions in actual social encoun-
ters is seriously limited.

Threatened Motives as Activators of Emotionally

Mediated Defensive Processes in
Person Perception

 

 

 

In light of the lack of sufficient evidence, the present study was
designed to demonstrate the operation of the three essential components
of the emotionally mediated defensive process in person perception. The
first step in demonstrating such a process was to select a threatening
stimulus that would activate the defensive process.

While personality theorists propose a variety of different threat-
ening stimuli which may activate defensive processes in person perception,
most of them share at least one basic premise concerning the kind of
stimulus which will activate a defensive process. According to this
premise, a defensive process would be activated if perceivers feel that
a target person might threaten the continuing gratification of their
enduring and predominant motives, and that there is little they can do

to prevent the threat from materializing. Because of the relatively

6

strong theoretical consensus regarding this basic premise, it seemed to
be a logical starting point for the empirical testing of the notion of
emotionally mediated defensive person perception. However, before we
present the current investigation in detail, we would like to demonstrate
briefly that the proposed premise concerning the activation of defensive
person perception, indeed, is supported by many of the major theoretical
approaches to personality.

The Status of Threatened Motives as Activators

of Defensive Processes in Person Perception
in Some Major Theories of Personality

In orthodox psychoanalytic thinking, the broad concept of character
(Fenichel, 1945) seems to contain within its domain the more specific
concept of enduring motive. According to Fenichel, a character of an
individual consists of this person's general, stable, and largely ego-
syntonic mode of adaptation to the long term internal and external
demands experienced by the individual.

Depending on their central conflicts and major defenses, as well as
external circumstances, different characters are assumed to have devel-
oped different enduring motives (with concomitant interpersonal styles)
which they habitually try to gratify in their daily interactions with
other pe0ple. The continuing gratification of these motives provide
individuals with what can be described as their first line of defense.
Thus, the gratification of motives allows individuals to continue to
avoid facing more deep, painful, and disturbing conflicts. Therefore,
enduring motives determine both the kinds of gratification which individ-
uals generally seek from other people and the threats and frustrations
to which these people are most vulnerable. For example, an individual
with an oral-dependent character is assumed to have very different

motives than an individual with an anal or narcissistic character.

The fact that orthodox psychoanalysis viewed motives as an impor-
tant aspect of people's characters is clearly demonstrated in Fenichel's
(1945) discussion of the inability of persons with severe character dis-
orders to form healthy relationships with other pe0ple. Thus, he makes
the following statements about individuals with severe character
disorders:

The interest in external objects exists because external objects

represent either a threat or a potential gratification . . . some

predominant need, overshadowing everything else, more or less
excludes real object relationships, because the objects are used

in order to satisfy the predominant need. (p. 508)

Among current psychoanalytic thinkers the concept of character
recently has been discussed widely, especially with regard to the
question of narcissistic characters. Many of these theorists also have
described in great detail the different ways by which a given motive,
as the dominant feature of an individual's character, may serve as a
defense against a more basic and painful conflict. For example,
Kernberg (1975) proposed that the striving toward self-aggrandizement
and the concomitant tendency toward devaluation of other pe0ple that
constitute the most salient overt motivational features of narcissistic
characters actually serve_as a defense against emotional dependence
on other pe0ple.

According to Kernberg, narcissistic individuals try to avoid depen-
dency because they are afraid that close emotional involvement with
others would activate:

More primitive, pathological object relations centered around

narcissistic rage and envy, fear and guilt because of this rage,

and yet a desparate longing for a loving relationship that would

not be destroyed by hatred. (p. 274)

Thus, the need for the love of the primary object represents the

most basic need of the narcissistic character, whereas a secondary set

of needs involves the need to demonstrate independence and express anger
in relation to the primary love object. The overt motivation toward
self-aggrandizement and avoidance of interpersonal closeness, therefore,
represents a defense against an underlying conflict involving more basic
but covert needs.

The terminology used in the present study reserves the name motive
for the readily observable overt strivings which characterize individ-
uals. The term need designates the more basic, less specific, and often
covert forces underlying the motives.. It should be noted that the above
distinction between need and motive is influenced by Aronoff's and
Wilson's definition of peripheral motives and core basic needs in
relation to Maslow's (1970) theory of motivation.

Orthodox psychoanalytic theorizing focused on intrapersonal rather
than interpersonal conflict. Consequently, the constructs of predomi-
nant motivational orientation and character and.their implications for
defensive processes in person perception did not occupy a central place
in analytic thinking. Many of the psychoanalytically oriented thinkers
after Freud, however, placed a major emphasis on interpersonal relations
and conflicts. As a result, they also emphasized the importance of
interpersonal threats and the defense against such threats.

Sullivan (1948) postulated the process of selective inattention to
the anxiety provoking attributes of others. Similarly, Horney (1945)
proposed that in order to defend themselves against a state of basic
anxiety, pe0p1e develop three basic orientations toward others: moving
towards, against, and away. Horney's concept of basic orientation has
much in common with the construct of motive. Thus, the motive character-
izing individuals who tend to "move toward" others is the need for depen-

dency, which is expressed in attempts to attain support and protection

against helplessness. Individuals who are inclined to "move against"
have a strong need for dominance, recognition, superiority, and control,
as well as a strong need to avoid closeness, intimacy, and dependency.
Persons who tend to "move away" have a need for detachment, withdrawal,
and avoidance of closeness.

According to Horney (1945), encounters with persons who appear
likely to interfere with perceivers' ability to maintain their basic
orientation and continue to gratify the needs associated with it tend
to arouse anxiety and trigger a defensive process. It is interesting
to note that in addition to situational, stimulus specific defensive
perceptual biases, Horney also postulated the existence of cross-
situational enduring perceptual biases, designed to protect the needs
associated with the three basic orientations from frustration and threat.

The first characteristic that Maslow (1970) ascribed to the self-
actualized, healthy individual was the ability to perceive others and
the world in general in a nondefensive "fresh" way, undistorted by the
perceiver's needs. Maslow, of course, also postulated the existence of
enduring motives that are related to individuals' basic needs.

Because of his emphasis on the concept of need, Murray's (1938)
approach is especially close to the basic premise tested in this study.
Murray (1938) defined need as a fbrce which "organizes perception,
apperception, intellection, conation, and action" (p. 124) and which
manifests itself by "leading the organism to search for or to avoid
encountering or, when encountered, to attend and respond to certain kinds
of press" (p. 124). Press was described by Murray as the degree to which
eXternal environmental stimuli such as people, events, or situations
gratify or frustrate the organism's needs. According to Murray, different

needs, by definition, have different presses.

10

Consistent with his general approach, Murray assumed that a certain
need would activate defensive perceptual processes if the perceiver
experiences or anticipates experiencing a negative press for that need.
The process of anticipation of press to a certain needeas called by
Murray "pressive apperception." In the case of defensive person per-
ception processes, the press would be another person who is experienced,
or is expected to be experienced as threatening or frustrating to one of
the perceiver's needs.

In summary, it should be noted that the premise that was examined
in this study is essentially the same as Murray's conception of the inter-
action between need and negative press as the process responsible for the
activation of defensive person perception.

The Effects of the Eg__Defense of JDenial on
Emotionally Mediated Defensive; Processes

The discussion of defensive processes in person perception has
focused to this point only on one kind of personality variable, namely,
psychological motives. However, based on the psychoanalytic literature
(Freud, S., 1927; Freud, A., 1937) and on Lazarus and his colleagues'
theoretical and empirical work (Lazarus G Baker, 1956, 1957; Lazarus 8
Alfert, 1964), it was hypothesized that the intensity and nature of the
defensive process in person perception would be influenced by perceivers'
preferred mode of defense, in addition to their predominant motives.

In this context, Lazarus' and Baker's (1956, 1957) conception of
motive and defense as two determinants of individuals' reaction to stress
seems particularly instructive:

In the theoretical approach to psychological stress recently pro—

posed by Lazarus and Baker (1956, 1957), two problems were emphasized.

0n the one hand, an individual's pattern of motivation was regarded

as determining the potency of any situation in producing stress. 0n
the other hand, once a stress reaction is aroused, the person's

11

behavior depends upon his method of copingwith the disturbance.

(Vogel, Raymond, G Lazarus, 1959, p. 225).

People's methods of coping with emotional disturbance and stress
long have been considered by psychoanalytic writers such as A. Freud
(1937) to be at least partially determined by their preferred mode of
defense. The "New Look" studies have demonstrated that pe0p1e's mode of
caping with emotional stress on the cognitive level is strongly affected
by their defenses (Eriksen, 1963, 1968). Moreover, there also exists
some evidence which suggests that defenses affect the degree of emotional
arousal and disturbance in response to threat.

Lazarus and Alfert (1964) demonstrated that subjects high on denial
(as measured by a number of MMPI scales) manifested a higher level of
physiological arousal in response to a stressful film than did subjects
low on this defense. In their verbal reports, however, subjects high on
denial proclaimed to have felt less emotional disturbance than their low
denial counterparts.

In another study, which previously was described at length, Luborsky,
Blinder, and Schimeck (1965) demonstrated that when looking at sexually
threatening pictures, subjects who were high on repression (as measured
by a number of Rorschach scales) showed a greater degree of physiological
arousal than subjects who were low on repression. The "repressors" also
engaged in more avoidance looking. More recently, Notarius and Levenson
(1979) showed that subjects who were less facially expressive in response
to a threat of shock evidenced greater reactivity to it in terms of their
heart rate responses.

Taken tOgether, these studies have demonstrated that individuals who
try to repress, inhibit, or deny their voluntary affective responses to

threat show greater physiological reactivity to threat than do individuals

12

who are less inclined to try to repress, inhibit, or deny their affective
reactions.

' It seems reasonable to assume that this response tendency in individ-
uals who are high on denial and inhibition is a function of their basic
fear of experiencing, acknowledging, and expressing negative emotions
and socially undesirable wishes. Therefore, when such emotions or desires
are activated in them, individuals high on denial and inhibition feel more
threatened and they actually experience more anxiety and stronger arousal
of the autonomic nervous system than individuals who are low on denial and
inhibition. At the same time, these defensive individuals try to deny
and control their emotional reactions in those expressive channels that
are more easily given to voluntary control by the nervous system, such as
verbal reports and facial expressions.

Based on the research findings and theoretical considerations dis-
cussed to this point, it was hypothesized that individuals who are high
on the tendency to deny negative emotions and socially undesirable wishes
would show a greater degree of anxiety and autonomic arousal following
the perception of a threat to their predominant motive than would individ-

uals who are low on the defense of denial.

The Present Study

 

The Motives Chosen for Study: Dominance
and Dependency

 

 

The motives selected for investigation in this study were dominance
and dependency. In the area of personality theory, the theorist that pro-
vided the most extensive description of these motives is Karen Horney
(1945). The dominance motive seems to constitute the core characteristic

of Horney's "Moving Against" orientation (pp, 63-72) whereas the dependency

13

motive seems to constitute the core characteristic of the "Moving Toward"
orientation (pp. 48-62).

In a variety of empirical investigations, the dimension of dominance-
submission has emerged as one of the more central constructs of group
process and social interaction (e.g., Bales, 1970; Leary, 1957; Mehrabian,
1972). Research also has shown that dominance and dependency related
personality variables are important determinants of the position that
individuals occupy along the dominance-submission dimension in a wide
variety of groups (e.g., Bales, 1970; Leary, 1957; Megargee, BOgart, &
Anderson, 1966; Schultz, 1958; Smelser, 1961). Thus, it seemed reasonable
to posit that dominance and dependency are social motives that influence
the manner in which individuals typically strive to structure the various
interpersonal situations that they encounter.

Dominance-oriented persons seem interested primarily in the attain-
ment of control of, and recognition from, the other members of the group,
and, therefore, they strive to obtain higher status or leadership
positions. Since the attainment and exhibition of control and superiority
are so important for the dominance oriented persons, they try to avoid
situations and relationship that reveal their direct dependence on other
people. Consequently, they develop an overly emphasized need to demon-
strate independence.

In contrast, dependency oriented persons primarily seem interested
in decreasing their sense of helplessness and inadequacy by minimizing
responsibility, shrinking from interpersonal conflicts and, most impor-
tant, by obtaining the support of others through occupying lower status
or follower positions. The support that a dependent person seeks from
others is both emotional (i.e., reassurance and approval) and instru-

mental (i.e., help and guidance in making decisions, meeting demands,

14

and performing actions related to different aspects of one's daily

existence).

The Manipglation of the Level of Threat
'Posed by Target Persons to the Dominance
and Dependency Motives

In order to test the premise that an emotionally mediated defensive
process in person perception would be activated in response to motiva-
tional threat, an attempt was made in the present research to create two
contexts in which target persons would pose threats to the dominance or
dependency motives of perceivers. In one context, the dominance motive
received high threat and the dependency motive received low threat. This
context was called the "Dominance Threat" condition. In the second con-
text, the dependency motive received high threat, and the dominance
motive, low threat. This context was called the "Dependency Threat"
condition.

Previously, it was stated that an emotionally mediated defensive
process would be triggered gnly_if the motivational threat that is
involved is serious and significant. This position is, of course, very
similar. to Murray's (1938) assumption that a need would be activated (and
influence emotional and cOgnitive fUnctions) only when adequate press is
present. Based on these considerations, the first task of this study was
to maximize the threat posed by the target persons to a particular motive
in one condition, while minimizing the threat to the same motive in the
other condition.

The choice of the particular motivational threat manipulation used
in the present study, to a large extent, was based on the threat manipu-
lation employed in a previous study by Assor Aronoff and Messe' (1981).
In that study, subjects viewed a tape of two persons working together on

three tasks. The level of threat which the target person posed to

15

perceivers' dominance and dependency motives was manipulated through the
status attributed to one person relative to the other (i.e., relative
rank, power, and ability). Results showed that as predicted dominance
oriented perceivers evaluated the same persons more positively when they
were presented as possessing less status than their partners, whereas
the reverse pattern was true for dependency oriented subjects.

In light of the positive results of the previous study, it was
assumed that radically different motivational threat conditions can be
created if perceivers observe a very dominant and competent person work-
ing with a submissive and incompetent person, and expect to evaluate,
and work with, one of these target persons. More specifically, it was
hypothesized that dominance-oriented perceivers would be threatened more
by the prospect of evaluating and working with a very dominant and com-
petent person than by the prospect of evaluating and working with a sub-
missive and incompetent person. Conversely, dependency oriented individ-
uals were expected to be more threatened by the prospect of evaluating
and working with a submissive and incompetent person than by the prospect
of evaluating and working with a very dominant and competent person.

In order to insure that in the "Dependency Threat" condition, domi-
nance oriented perceivers would not be threatened merely by the exposure
to a very competent target person whom they do not expect to meet (as
happened in the study by Assor et al., 1981), the difference between the
task competence presented by the two target persons in the "Dependency
Threat" condition was designed to be less large than in the "Dominance
Threat" condition.

The design of the two motivational threat conditions was based on
the notion that dominance oriented subjects would focus on the compet-

itive, status, recognition, and control aspects of the situation, whereas

16

dependency oriented subjects would focus on the possibility of confusion,
helplessness, and failure.

In summary, then, a "Dominance Threat" condition was develoPed in
which subjects would observe a very dominant person working with a sub-
missive person who was also much less task-competent than the dominant
person. The subjects would expect to evaluate and work with the dominant
person. In the "Dependency Threat" condition, subjects also would observe
a dominant person and a submissive person working together, but the dif-
ference in task competence between the target persons would be less

large, and the subjects would expect to meet the submissive person.

The Effects of the Ego Defense of Denial
an Emotional Arousal'

 

The defense characteristic selected for study in the present investi-
_ gation was the general tendency toward denial of negative emotions and
socially undesirable wishes. The effects of denial on emotional arousal
were discussed previously. Therefore, in this section I discuss the
hypothesized process through which motives and defenses are thought to
jointly affect emotional arousal.

According to the hypothesized process, after perceivers were threat-
ened by the perception of a particular target person (which constitutes
a threat to their predominant motive), they would experience an increase
in anxiety. Once perceivers' anxiety was aroused, their reaction would
depend on their fear of experiencing and acknowledging negative emotions
which, in turn, is reflected in their tendency to use denial type of
defenses. Perceivers who are high on denial would become especially
anxious. Therefore, for these perceivers the initial increase in anxiety
due to motivational threat would be amplified further by their fear of

negative emotional states.

17

In contrast, perceivers who are relatively less fearful of experi-
encing and acknowledging negative emotions would show the initial increase
in anxiety due to the threat of their motive, but would not show an
additional increase due to fear of negative emotions.

The Effects of the Dominance and
Dependency Motives on Evaluation

The specific cognitive process examined in this study was the
dimension of favorability of evaluation in forming impressions of others.
Factor analyses consistently have shown that the evaluative dimension
accounts for the largest portion of the variance in the semantic Space
of a wide range of concepts and stimuli (e.g., Osgood, Suci, 8
Tannenbaum, 1957).and is an important feature of the description of per-
sons (e.g., Levy,& Dugan, 1960; Warr 8 Knapper, 1968). The evaluative
process was chosen because the results of a previous study (Assor,
Aronoff, 8 Messe', 1981) showed that evaluation can be used defensively
by dominance and dependency oriented perceivers in their evaluations of
high and low status target persons.

In contrast to the previous study, which demonstrated the operation
of the second component, the present study was aimed at demonstrating the
operation of all three components of the hypothesized defensive process.
As was explained previously, historically, the demonstration of the first
and especially the third component was much more problematic than the
demonstration of the second component. Therefore, in constructing the
evaluation procedure and the experiment as a whole, a special effort
was made to maximize the likelihood that the first and third components
would be detected.

Consistent with this emphasis, the present study included two fea-

tures which were likely to increase the probability of demonstrating the

18

operation of the first and third components, but also were likely to
suppress some of the negativity bias detected in the previous study in
subjects whose predominant motive was threatened. The above "trade-off"
between components 1 and 3 versus component 2 seemed reasonable because
it was expected that for those threatened subjects who would show a
negativity bias despite the presence of the two "negatively suppressing"
features, a complete defensive process would be more readily detected
because of the presence of the same two features. I

The first "negativity suppressing" feature consisted of the evalu—
ation procedure. In contrast to the previous study (Assor et al., 1981),
the present study employed a procedure of an oral evaluation by means of
an intercom system, rather than a paper and pencil, relatively more pri-
vate, evaluation. The oral evaluation procedure was preferred because it
enabled us to capture the increase in autonomic emotional arousal fol-
lowing each evaluative re5ponse and, thereby maximized the probability
of detecting the third component of the hypothesized defensive process.

However, while it increased the probability of detecting the third
defensive component, the public evaluation was expected to decrease the
probability that subjects would show a negative evaluative bias when
evaluating a motivationally threatening target person. The expectation
that oral and public evaluation will cause suppression of negative evalu-
ative bias was based on the notion that public evaluation would only
increase the already strong normative pressure (see Sears 8 Whitney,
1973) against negative evaluation.

The second feature of the present experiment which was expected to
suppress the expression of less favorable evaluations was the outcome
dependency of the evaluators on the target persons. More Specifically,

subjects in the present experiment expected that after they evaluated

19

the target persons they would meet and work with them. Studies by
Battistich (1979); Berscheid, Graziano, Mason, and Dermer (1976); and
Tyler and Sears (1977) have demonstrated that under such conditions of
outcome dependency, subjects tend to suppress their negative opinions of
their future partners, and instead, display a positivity bias. As was
explained previously, subjects were lead to believe that they would meet
the target person in order to increase the threat potential of the target
persons relative to the subjects' predominant motives.

In view of the hypothesized "negativity suppressing" effects of the
oral evaluation and the outcome dependency factors, it was difficult to
predict whether the dominance and dependency motives would have any
effects on evaluation. In this context, the results of a recent study
by Battistich (1979) seem particularly relevant because both studies
employed similar procedures and instruments.

Battistich (1979), unlike Assor et al. (1981), did not find any
effects of dominance or dependency on evaluation of dominant or submis-
sive target persons. Battistich attributed his lack of results for
evaluation to the operation of two possible factors, which were not
present at the Assor et a1. (1981) Study. The first factor involved the
outcome dependency of the subjects on the target person that they evalu-
ated. The second factor involved the extreme levels of sociability or
lack of sociability and assertiveness or lack of aSsertiveness exhibited
by Battistich's target persons. Battistich (1979) hypothesized that the
more extreme and unambiguous nature of his target persons, as compared
to the target persons employed by Assor et al. (1981), prevented the
subjects in his study from demonstrating significant perceptual distortion

or bias.

20

The present investigation was similar to Battistich's (1979) study
in that subjects expected to meet the target persons, but it was dissimilar
in that the target persons did not exhibit an extreme level of sociabil-
ity or lack of sociability. Because of the difference in the procedures
of the two studies, it was not possible to utilize Battistich's lack of
findings to predict lack of evaluation effects in the present study.
However, Battistich's negative results were useful because they increased
my awareness that the results obtained by Assor et a1. (1981) may not be
replicated when evaluation is performed under more inhibiting and threat-
ening conditions, as was the case in the present study.

The foregoing discussion suggested that under the circumstances
of the present study little or no effects of motives on evaluation would
be detected. In the following section, I attempt to show that if an
effect will be detected it will only be on the sociability subdimension
of evaluation, whereas the competence subdimension will not be affected
by cognitive bias. This hypothesis is based on the findings obtained by
Assor (1978). Assor (1978) showed that the general evaluation dimension
used in the Assor et al. (1981) study could be broken down into a socia-
bility and a competence subdimensions. This finding was consistent with
results obtained by Rosenberg, Nelson, and Virekanathan (1968), Friendly
and Glucksberg (1970), and Zana and Hamilton (1972). When the combined
effect of motive and target person was examined on each subdimension of
evaluation separately, it was found that as predicted, the effect was
only significant for the sociability subdimension.

According to Assor (1978), perceivers did not use the competence
subdimension defensively because this aspect of the target person was
defined unambiguously by the experimental manipulation. In contrast,

the sociability subdimension was used defensively, because there

21

existed a great deal of ambiguity concerning the sociability of the tar-
get persons.

The target persons used in this study were similar to the ones used
by Assor (1978) with regard to differences in the ambiguity of their
sociability and competence. As a result, it was expected that if motives
would have an effect on evaluation, this effect would be evidenced on the
sociability, but not on the competence subdimension of evaluation. If
such an effect would be found, it was hypothesized that dominance
oriented perceivers would evaluate the submissive target person as more
sociable than the dominant target person, to a greater extent than would
dependency oriented perceivers. The expected evaluative pattern was
assumed to serve a defensive function for dominance oriented individuals
because it would help them to increase their self-evaluation relative to
the devalued, yet threatening, dominant target person. Dependency
oriented perceivers were not expected to devalue the dominant person
relative to the submissive one on the sociability subdimension, because
they were expected to be more threatened and therefore more annoyed by
the submissive person than by the dominant person.

The Effects of the Ego_Defense of
Denial on Evaluation

There are at least two hypotheses that one can derive from theory
(Freud, 1937) concerning the effects of ego defenses on evaluation.
According to the first hypothesis, psychological defenses are assumed
to be activated in re5ponse to an increase in anxiety. Therefore, it
seemed reasonable to expect that perceivers' defenses would affect their
evaluations of other peOple only when these people pose a serious threat

to their motives and arouse sufficient anxiety1x>activate ego defenses.

22

According to the second hypothesis, individuals who are high on
the defense of denial will be especially fearful of experiencing and
expressing anger and hostile thoughts. Therefore, they might be expected
to evaluate others more favorably than most people on a regular basis and
without being threatened.

The empirical evidence for the influence of ego defenses on evalu-
ation is scant and rather inconsistent. Thus, while studies by Altrocchi
and Perlish (1963) and McDonald (1965) found that subjects who were high
on the defenses of denial, repression, and intellectualization attributed
less hostility to others, Altrocchi, Shrauger, and McLeod (1964) failed
to confirm these findings.

As was pointed out by Shrauger and Altrocchi (1964), the utility
of the above studies was limited because in all of them subjects and
target persons interacted before the evaluations were made. Therefore,
one cannot be sure whether differences in the attribution of hostility
were due to individual differences in the interpretation of essentially
similar behavior or due to differential influence of the subjects on
the person described.

More recent studies by Gleser and Sacks (1973) and Kipper and Ginot
(1979) did not suffer from the methodological flow of differential
influence raised by Altrocchi (1964), and, therefore, might be more
relevant to the question of the effect of defense on evaluation. Inter—
estingly enough, these studies found no evidence for the effect of
defense on the evaluation of other people.

Kipper and Ginot (1979) asked subjects to evaluate video tapes of
target persons who played different roles. As noted by Kipper and Ginot
(1979), this task did not constitute a serious threat to subjects.

Therefore, subjects' preferred modes of defense could only influence

23

their evaluations through a cross situational, general favorability or
negativity bias. The lack of positive findings, therefore, suggests
that the defense of denial does not produce a general evaluative bias.

A study by Gleser and Sachs (1979) is more relevant to the theo-
retically derived hypothesis that ego defenses affect evaluation only
when the subject is threatened. In that study, subjects were administered
a test which ostensibly measured intellectual ability and then were led
to believe that they failed it seriously. After they completed a number
of questionnaires, and before the end of the experiment, subjects were
asked to evaluate the investigator. The researchers report that no sig-
nificant correlations were found between defense scores and evaluations
of the experimenter, which were all uniformly positive. These negative
results, however, should be interpreted with caution, since it might be
that the process of evaluating the experimenter was too threatening and
therefore resulted in little variation in evaluation scores.

It seems reasonable to assume that the process of evaluating one's
future partner, which is employed in the present study,;‘.is less threat-
ening than that of evaluating one's experimenter. However, as was
explained previously, the procedure employed in the present study was
expected to suppress or, at least, moderate the negativity bias of sub-
jects whose motives were threatened. Therefore, although the circum-
stances of the present investigation seemed to be somewhat less threat-
ening than that of Gleser and Sach's (1973) study, it was unclear whether
the theoretically expected effect of denial on evaluation would be evi-
denced despite the "negativity suppressing" nature of the experimental
procedure. If such an effect would be found, it was hypothesized that

among perceivers whose motives were threatened by the target persons,

24

perceivers who are high rather than low on denial would evaluate the

target persons more favorably.

Reduction of Anxiety as a Function
of Motive Related Defensive Evaluation

 

 

On the basis of our description of the defensive process, we
expected that defensive use of evaluation would be followed by reduced
level of anxiety, as indicated by one's level of emotional arousal during
the evaluation period.

As was explained before, some dominance oriented perceivers whose
dominance motive was threatened were expected to use the sociability sub-
dimension of evaluation defensively. More specifically, it was hypoth-
esized that they would try to devalue the dominant target person in
order to increase their self-evaluation relative to him. The resulting
increase in positive self-evaluation was expected to be associated with
a reduced level of anxiety and emotional arousal. Therefore, it was
predicted that for dominance oriented perceivers who would be exposed to
the "Dominance Threat" condition, less favorable evaluation of the domi-
nant target person on the sociability subdimension would be associated
with reduced level of anxiety and emotional arousal.

As was explained previously, subjects in the other motive by
threat conditions were not expected to use the sociability subdimension
of evaluation defensively, but rather, to express their degree of liking
fer the target person. Negative interpersonal evaluations are socially
undesirable and therefore are likely to be anxiety provoking, especially
if made out loud and publicly. Therefore, it was not expected that for
subjects in the three other motive by threat groups, unfavorable evalu-
ation would be associated with reduced level of anxiety and emotional

arousal.

25

It is important to note that because of the specific evaluative
procedure employed in this study, the concept of reduced level of
anxiety or emotional arousal is not intended to designate an absolute
reduction in one's level of anxiety (i.e., a situation where one's
post-evaluation level of anxiety is lower than one's pre-evaluation
level of anxiety). The act of public evaluation was expected to increase
the anxiety and emotional arousal of all subjects. Within this context,
reduced level of emotional arousal would be indicated by a relatively

small increase in emotional arousal.

A Note on the Measurement of Anxiety

As was explained previously, the major objective of this study was
to demonstrate the existence and operation of the three essential com-
ponents of an emotionally mediated defensive process. It should be
recalled that the first and third components of this process were assumed
to involve arousal and reduction of anxiety. Therefore, the measurement
of anxiety played an important role in the present study.

The two methods which were employed most frequently in past research
to measure anxiety are self-reports and physiological measures. Self-
report measures were found to be susceptible to conscious and unconscious
distortions (e.g., Clum 8 Clum, 1973; Gleser 8 Sachs, 1973; Lazarus 8
Alfert, 1963). Physiological measures were found to be less susceptible
than self-reports to conscious and unconscious distortions (e.g.,

Lazarus 8 Alfert, 1963) and therefore were selected to measure anxiety in
the present investigation.

The specific physiological process selected as an indicator of
anxiety in this study was phasic electrodermal activity (EDA). Phasic

EDA consists of sudden and transient changes in skin conductance that

26

appear spontaneously or in response to external stimuli. In contrast
to phasic EDA, tonic EDA consists of relatively long-term changes in EDA
(Hasset, 1978). Studies by Kilpatrick (1972), Katkin (1965), Miller
(1968) and Miller and Shmavonian (1965) demonstrated that phasic, but
not tonic, EDA is a good index of emotional autonomic arousal induced

by exposure to physical or psychological threat. Conversely, tonic, but
not phasic, EDA was found to be a good index of cognitive or perceptual
activity.

Kilpatrick (1972) for example, asked subjects to work on a neuro-
psychological test and created two psychological stress conditions by
varying the introduction to the test. In the high stress condition sub-
jects were told that they would take a test of brain damage and intel-
ligence, and they would be required to compare their scores on the test
with those of other subjects. In the low stress condition, subjects were
told that the purpose of the experiment was to explore the relationship
between task preferences and physiological variables. Results showed
that subjects who were exposed to a condition of high psychological
stress showed significantly more phasic EDA than subjects who were
exposed to a condition of low physiological stress. As predicted, sub—
jects in the two stress grours did not manifest a significant difference
in levels of tonic EDA.

Another important investigation which related psychological threat
to phasic EDA was the research by Luborsky et a1. (1963, 1965), which
was described previously in detail. Luborsky and his colleagues found
that exposure to threatening pictures was associated with increase in
phasic EDA. In addition, they also found that subjects' post-experimental
ratings of their anxiety in response to different pictures were highly and

positively correlated with their phasic EDA during their exposure to these

27

pictures. The results of Luborsky et a1. (1963, 1965) are especially
relevant to the present research because both studies involved induction
of psychological threat by means of a visual display.

Taken together, the results of the studies cited and surveyed above
suggest that phasic EDA would be a reasonably valid measure of emotional
autonomic arousal related to anxiety. Since emotional autonomic arousal
served as the operational measure of anxiety, the hypotheses tested in

this study were formulated in terms of emotional autonomic arousal.

Hypotheses

 

Hypothesis I

 

Perceivers' emotional autonomic arousal will be affected by the
degree to which the peOple whom they observe pose a threat to their pre-
dominant motives. Thus, I expected a motive of perceiver by motivational
threat interaction: A situation involving target persons that theoreti-
cally should be threatening to dominance oriented subjects would be more
autonomically arousing to these people than one in which such target
persons are absent; in contrast, a situation involving target persons
which theoretically should be threatening to dependency oriented sub-
jects would be more autonomically arousing to these people than a situ-

ation devoid of such target persons.

Hypothesis II

 

Individuals who are high on denial will show greater emotional auto-
nomic arousal following the perception of a threat to their predominant
motive than will individuals who are low on denial. Thus, I expected a
motive by threat by denial interaction: Among dominance oriented per-
ceivers who would be exposed to the "Dominance Threat" condition, a

greater increase in emotional autonomic arousal would be evidenced in

28

perceivers who are high rather than low on denial; similarly, among
dependency oriented perceivers who would be exposed to the "Dependency
Threat" condition, a greater increase in emotional autonomic arousal

would be evidenced in perceivers who are high, rather than low on denial.

Hypothesis III

For dominance oriented perceivers who will be exposed to the "Domi-
nance Threat" condition, less favorable evaluation of the dominant target
person on sociability will be followed by a reduced level of emotional
autonomic arousal. Among subjects in the three other motive by threat
conditions, less favorable evaluation of the target person on sociability

would not be followed by a reduced level of emotional autonomic arousal.

In addition to three formal hypotheses presented above, the present
study also provided an opportunity to explore two other questions regard-
ing the effects of motives and ego defense on evaluation under threaten~
ing, "negatively-suppressing," conditions. The first question was
whether perceivers' motives would interact with the threat posed by the
target persons to each motive to affect the evaluation of the target per-
sons on sociability. The second question was whether perceivers' tendency
to use the ego defense of denial would interact with perceivers' motives
and the degree to which the target persons pose a threat to these motives,

to affect the evaluation of the target persons on sociability.

CHAPTER 11

METHOD

Overview of the Study

 

Male students participated in two sessions. In thefirst session
they completed a variety of personality instruments aimed at measuring
dominance, dependency, defense mechanisms and a number of other dispo-
sitions. Subjects classified as high on dependency or dominance then
were invited to a second session in which they watched a video-tape of
two target persons working together. Subjects were told that they were
going to evaluate, and then later work with, one of the two peOple they
were about to observe. Subjects' electrodermal activity was monitored

as they watched and evaluated their future partner.

Subjects

TWO hundred fifty-one male undergraduates from several introductory
courses in psychology participated in the first session. Fifty-four sub-
jects were invited to participate in the second session, and 53 of them
agreed to participate.1 All subjects received extra credit toward their

course grade for taking part in the study.

 

1 .
Of the 53 subjects who took part in the experimental session, the
data of 3 were not included in the analysis because of equipment problems

in recording physiological activity, or because of problems with the
aud1o-visual equipment.

29

30

First Session

 

During the first session groups of 15-30 subjects at a time com-
pleted three instruments for the purposes of the present investigation:
(1) a shortened version of the Dominance scale of the CPI (Cough, 1957;
Assor, Aronoff, G Messe', 1981); (2) the Succorance scale of the Edwards
Personal Preference Schedule (Edwards, 1959); and (3) the Defense Mecha-
nism Inventory (Gleser 8 Ihilevitch, 1969). For other research purposes
subjects also completed the Aronoff Sentence Completion (Aronoff, 1971);
the Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne G Marlow, 1960); the
Private Self-Consciousness factor of the Self-Conscousness scale
(Fenigstein, Scheier, 8 Buss, 1975) and the Deference scale of the
Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (Edwards, 1959).

Classification of Subjects to the Dominance
and Dependency Groups

 

 

Two scales were used to select subjects for each one of the motive
groups discussed in the Introduction.

A shortened 22-item version of the 46-item Dominance scale of the
CPI was used to assess dominance motivation, which is closely associated
with an expressed confidence in one's social competence. As was demon-
strated by Assor, Aronoff, and Messe' (1981), subjects who score low on
the shortened Dominance scale not only express little interest in domi—
nance butalso report feelings of anxiety and helplessness regarding their
performance in social settings and social interactions. The validity Of
the scale as a measure of dominance motivation was demonstrated in the
study by Assor, Aronoff, and Messe' (1981) and by Assor and O'Quin (1981).

The Succorance scale of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule
(Edwards, 1959) was used to measure subjects' expressed interest in

receiving emotional and instrumental support from other people. Although

31

endorsement of the items comprising the Succorance scale often implies
an implicit acknowledgment of difficulties in coping, the scale does not
measure directly expressed feelings of social anxiety and helplessness.
An extended discussion of the validity and correlates of the Succorance
scale can be found in Assor (1978).

Subjects were selected for the dominance group if they scored within
the top third on the shortened Dominance scale and within the bottom third
on the Succorance scale. Subjects were selected for the dependency group
if they scored within the top third on the Succorance scale and the bottom
third on the revised Dominance scale. According to this classification,
subjects in the Dominance group were high on dominance and low on suc-
corance. Therefore, they were characterized by a strong need for indepen-
dence, as well as a strong interest in dominance. This combination of
concerns seems to provide a good operationalization of the dominance
motive discussed in the Introduction.

Subjects in the dependency group were high on succorance and low on
dominance. Therefore, they were characterized by feelings of social
anxiety and helplessness, an inclination to avoid interpersonal struggles
fOr dominance, and a need for emotional and instrumental support. This
combination of dispositions seemed to provide a good Operationalization
of the dependency motive discussed in the Introduction.

The succorance and the shortened dominance scales appear in Appen-
dix A. The shortened dominance scale comprises the first part of the
Psychological Inventory and the succorance scale comprises the second

part of that inventory.

Measurement of Ego Defenses

 

The Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI) developed by Gleser and

Ihilevitch (1969) was used to measure ego defenses. The DMI provides

32

scores fOr five clusters of defenses. These cluster are described by

Gleser and Ihilevich (1969) in the following way:

Turning Against Object (TAO). This class of defenses deals with
conflict through attacking a real or presumed external frustrating
object. Such classical defenses as identification-with-the-
aggressor and displacement can be placed in this category.

Projection (PRO). Included here are defenses which justify
the expression of aggression toward an external object through first
attributing to it, without unequivocal evidence, negative intent,
or characteristics.

Principalization (PRN). This class of defenses deal with con-
flict through invoking a general principle that "splits off" affect
from content and represses the former. Defenses such as intellectu-
alization, isolation, and rationalization fall into this category.

Thrning Against Self (TAS). In this class are those defenses
that handle conflict through directing aggressive behavior toward S
himself. Masochism and autosadism are examples of defensive
solutions in this category.

Reversal (REV). This class includes defenses that deal with
conflict by responding in a positive or neutral fashion to a
frustrating object which might be expected to evoke a negative
reaction. Defenses such as negation, denial, reaction formation,
and repression are subsumed under this category. (p. 52)

From the above description it is clear that the defenses clustered
under the category of Reversal (REV) involve a tendency to deny negative
emotions and socially undesirable wishes. Therefore, REV was viewed as
an apprOpriate Operational measure of the construct of denial that was
discussed in the Introduction.

The validity of the REV scale, was demonstrated in a number of
studies. Gleser and Ihilevich (1969) showed that as expected, REV and
to a lesser extent, PRN, correlated positively with social desirability
scales such as the MMPI L and K scales and negatively with Welsh's MMPI
Anxiety factor. Schill, Rader, Evans, and Segal (1976) showed that for
males, guilt about hostility was positively related to REV and PRN.
Schill and Bekker (1976) found that males who were high on the defenses
of REV and PRN and low on PRO tended to give less sexual associations in

response to double entendre word association test.

33

Cohen (1969) showed that subjects who reported frequent dream recall
were lower on REV than were infrequent dream recallers. Klein, Gonen,
and Smith (1975) reported that high REV and TAS scores were consistent
with the psychogenic diagnosis of a patient with painful Ecchymosis fol-
lowing surgery for a herniated lumbar disc. Perhaps, most relevant to
our specific hypotheses, Minsky (1978) found that in comparison to
normotensives, hypertensives scored significantly higher on REV and TAS
and significantly lower on TAO.

A median split was used to assign subjects into a high vs. low
group on reversal. The DMI appears in Appendix A under the name Situ-
at ional SSrvey .

The Manipulation of Threat Posed by the
Target Persons to Motives

 

 

In order to standardize the presentation of target persons across
subjects, it was decided to prepare video-tapes of staged interactions
between two male actors. These video-tapes were presented to subjects
as "live broadcasts" of an interaction between two persons, one of whom
the subject was to meet later. Based on the considerations outlined in
the Introduction, two scripts were prepared, one for each threat
condition.

Both scripts portrayed two target persons who were asked to role
play two leaders of a rescue expedition, whose aim was to evacuate
3000 pe0ple from a flooded valley. The target persons were provided
with a large map and a list of problems they had to solve. Their task
was to prepare an optimal evacuation plan.2 Both scripts presented one

target person as more dominant and competent than the other. However,

 

2The evacuation problem and map appear in Appendix B.

34

based on the considerations discussed in the Introduction, the script
designed for the condition of "Dominance Threat" portrayed a larger dif-
ference in the task competence of the two target persons than the script
designed for the "Dependency Threat" condition.

As was explained in the Introduction, the threat that the target
persons posed to the perceivers' motives was manipulated also through the
particular target person whom the perceivers expected to meet. Thus, in
the "Dominance Threat" condition subjects expected to meet the dominant
and competent target person, whereas in the "Dependency Threat" condition

subjects expected to meet the submissive and less competent target person.

Controlling for Actor Effect

In order to produce video-tapes from the scripts, two pairs of
actors were hired. Each pair of actors produced one "Dominance Threat"
video-tape and one "Dependency Threat" video-tape. Thus, a total of
four tapes were produced, two for each threat condition.

Design

The combination of factors that was explored in this study constituted
a design with the following dimensions: perceiver's predominant motive
(dominance vs. dependency) x perceiver's score on the ego defense of
denial (high vs. low) x motivational threat of observed interaction
(threat dominance vs. threat dependency) x actor pair (two pairs).

To avoid misunderstandings concerning the possibility of a confound-
ing in the two motivational threat conditions, a clarification of the
logic of the design seems to be in order. As was discussed earlier, each
motivational threat condition contains two main elements. The first
element was the competence and dominance of the target person whom the

perceiver expected to evaluate and with whom he expected to work. The

35

second element was the relative difference in the task competence exhib-
ited by the two target persons in the two types of interactions.

It is important to note that not systematically varying the combi-
nation of these two elements was not a confounding, given the issues that
this study attempted to clarify. This study was not concerned with trying
to determine how threatening each component of the situation was for a
particular motive. Rather, it was focused on trying to demonstrate that
persons who are theoretically expected to threaten a motive indeed invoke
the expected defensive process. The primary goal of the Observed inter-
action was to present subjects with stimuli that on theoretical grounds,
could be expected to maximize or minimize the threatening or gratifying
aspects of the target persons. If there were several situational factors
that combined to make the target person theoretically more threatening
or frustrating, so much the better; it would mean that the power of the
experimental design was increased.

Setting and Apparatus During_the
Experimental Session

 

Subjects were seated in a comertable chair facing the TV monitor
that was used to show the video-tapes. The polygraph used was a Grass
Model 7 type, and was located in a different room, out of sight of the
subject. Skin conductance was recorded from both hands. The electrodes
used to record skin conductance were of the silver-silver chloride type.
One electrode was placed on the hypothenar eminence of each hand and a
second electrode was placed on the internal side of the upper part of
each lower arm. Each skin conductance electrode had a contact area of
.78 cmz. Skin resistance units were automatically converted into skin

conductance units by means of a Hagforth bridge. The electrolyte was a

Redux paste produced by Hewlet Packard. The sites on which the electrodes

36

were placed were cleaned with a 5% Saline solution and were dried before

the electrodes were applied.

Procedure of the Experimental Session

The experimental session took place between 1 to 2 months after the
personality testing session. Each subject was tested individually.

For purposes of data analysis and in order to provide a summary of
the procedure, the experiment was divided into a number of periods and
subperiods. A complete list of the periods and subperiods appears in the
sequence chart presented in Figure l.

1. Pre-tape Period: Upon arriving at the session, the subject was

 

met by a male experimenter who gave the subject the following explanation
about the experiment:

"The main purpose of the study is to learn how people in leader-
ship positions deal with problem situations and how present leaders
are influenced by past leaders in the way they deal with problems.

In order to be able to study these questions, the subjects in this
experiment were divided into pairs. Each pair represents a gener-
ation of leadership. The pairs are always composed of one veteran
member who already participated in a leadership dyad in the previous
generation and a new member who will go on to the next generation.

As far as you are concerned, you will first observe, through
this close circuit TV, the two leaders of the past generation c0ping
with a problem. Second, since we are interested in how people remem-
ber past leaders, we will ask you to describe your impressions of
these people. In the third stage, the more veteran member of the
pair that you have observed will leave, and you would come in and
work with the other member on a new problem situation. While you are

working with him, you will be Observed, through a close circuit TV,

37

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38

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ject

39

by a new person. In the last stage, the now veteran member of the
dyad will leave and you will be joined by the new person, who had
previously observed you and your first partner through the close
circuit TV. In summary, you would go through the following stages:

1. Observe a leadership dyad of the last generation.

2. Describe your impressions of the past generation of

leadership.

3. Join the less veteran member of the last dyad to work on

a new problem.

4. Work on another problem with a new person who has previ-

ously observed you and your previous partner.

Now, before you start watching your future partner and his cur-
rent partner, I would like to connect you up to this machine, which
is called a polygraph. The polygraph measures some basic physio-
logical responses and would tell us how your body responds to prob-
lem situations. We are interested in this infOrmation because it
can help us to better understand your problem solving behavior later
on. The questionnaires that you completed in the first session were
also designed for a similar purpose. We wanted to know something
about yourself as a person so that we would be able to understand
better your problem solving behavior. Any questions?

O.K., I now will go to the control room to turn on the poly-
graph and (name of assistant), who is my assistant would come in and
do the hook-up."

The experimenter left and an assistant came in and connected the sub-
to the polygraph. Then, the assistant said:

"O.K., now that the electrodes are all hooked up, we need to

adjust the machine to the different signals of your body. While we

40

are doing these adjustments I would like you to close your eyes and
relax your body so that we can get a good baseline measurement of
your resting body. One important thing that I would like to ask
from you is not to move your body, or move it as 113513 as possible
because body movements throw off our measurements.
Any questions?
Have a good rest then, and (name of experimenter) will be back
in about 10 minutes."
The assistant left, and the subject remained alone in the room for
10 minutes, during which time his physiOIOgical reactivity baseline was
recorded. After 10 minutes the experimenter entered the room and said:
"Hello, your rest period is over. Meanwhile, I presented the
leadership pair that you are about to observe with their problem,
and they are now reviewing it. To insure that as you observe them
you would know what is going on, here is a description of the prob-
lem that they got and a map that goes with it. Remember that this
is ngt_the problem that you will get, so you will ngt_be expected
to know or solve it. Therefore, in reading it, don't try to remem-
ber all the details; just try to understand the basic components so
that you can understand what the couple that you will observe is
trying to do. I will go now to the control room and will be back
in 4-5 minutes. Then you will be able to ask me any questions that
you might have about the problem that you read."
The experimenter then stepped out, leaving the subject to read the
problem alone. After 5 minutes the exPerimenter entered the room and
said:

"Do you have any questions about this problem?"

41

After answering the subject's questions, if he had any, the exper-
imenter then said:

"O.K., the members of the leadership couple in the other room are
ready to start on their problem. I will now turn on the close cir-
cuit TV, and in a moment or so you will see me starting them on
their problem. Remember that you will meet the person who will be
sitting on the left (or right). His name is Jack (or Bruce). After
the leadership dyad will finish working on their problem I will use
the close circuit TV to ask you for your impressions of them. You
will answer me through the intercom system. I will come into the
room only after you have finished the evaluation. Again, remember
that you will meet and work with the person who will be sitting on
the left (or right). His name is Jack (or Bruce)."

Before the experimenter left the room he turned on the TV monitor
and stepped out, leaving the subject alone in the room. On the TV screen
the subject then saw the experimenter entering another room with two other
persons. After the experimenter introduced the target persons to each
other, he explained the problem situation to them and then left the room.

In reality, the experimenter never went to the observed room and the
whole introductory period was pre-recorded. The above deception was
designed to insure that the subjects would believe that what they saw on
the TV monitor was a live broadcast rather than a pre-recorded program.

.A post-experimental check showed that all subjects believed that the
broadcast, indeed, was live.

2. Observe Task Period: During this period the subject sat alone

 

in the room and watched a stimulus tape in which the two target persons

tried to solve a flood rescue problem in about 20 minutes.

42

3. Observe Interview Period: After the alloted time had expired
the experimenter (on the tape) entered the room and asked the observed
target persons how they felt about the task. The experimenter also men-
tioned that after a period of rest one target person would proceed to
the next stage of the experiment and meet his future partner. That
"future partner" was, of course, the actual subject.

4. Wait fOr Evaluation Period: After the subject observed the

 

experimenter and the two target persons leave the room (via the TV
monitor) he sat alone in the observation room for 85 seconds, waiting

for the evaluation to start. During that time, the TV monitor was on
but the picture was blank, with no sound. The subject was told that at
the end of the Observation task he would evaluate his future partner, and
therefOre it is reasonable to assume that while he was waiting, he
expected to start the evaluation soon.

5. The Evaluation Period: The evaluation period started with an

 

explanation of the evaluation procedure. The subject was alone in the
room and the explanation was given through the TV monitor and the inter-
com system. Although it was prerecorded, the explanation was presented
and sounded as if it were live. The subject was asked to evaluate his
future partner on 20 semantic differential scales. The scales appeared
on the TV monitor one at a time. Each scale was preceded by a tone. The
tone alerted the subject that a new scale was about to appear. The sub-
ject was given 15 seconds to respond to each scale, after which a new
scale appeared. The subject responded to each scale by saying out loud
the number that he viewed as most descriptive of his future partner with
regard to the specific scale in question.

6. The Wait Period: After the evaluation period ended, the exPer-

 

imenter (through the intercom system) thanked the subject and told him

43

that in a short while he would come to take him to meet his future part-
ner. Then, the subject was left alone in the room for a minute and a
half. The TV monitor was still on but the picture was blank and had no
sound.

7. Experimenter Return Period: The experimenter entered the room
and said:

"(Name of subject), I am going to tell you now something that
might make you a little angry or disappointed--you are actually not
going to meet (name of target person) right now, and are not going
to work on any problem with him. This is because we are more
interested in how you react to people who are c0ping with problem
situations than in how you can cope with such situations yourself.

We told you that you will meet (name of target person) so that
you would get more involved with what you have seen.

SO, what you had seen actually was prerecorded. During the
last year we made many videotapes of many subjects trying to solve
problems together. We selected this tape and a few others because
the two subjects in it displayed very different approaches to the
problem and the whole situation. We were interested to see how
people reacted to the way these two very different people handled
the situation.

Because we are interested in your reactions to what you have
just seen, I am going to give you a few questionnaires that will ask
you to describe your feelings during the experiment and your ner-
ception and memories of the people that you saw."

The experimenter then showed and explained to the subject the dif-
ferent questionnaires. The subject's dominant hand was released from the

electrodes in order to allow him to write. The electrodes and pressure

44

. gauge were still attached to the rest of the subject's body, although
the polygraph was turned off by this point. The subject was led to
believe that his physiological reactions continued to be recorded in
order to maintain adequate level of ego involvement and make the ques-
tionnaires an integral part of the experiment.

8. Questionnaire Period: After the experimenter left, the sub-

 

ject completed a number of questionnaires which were included in the
procedure fOr subsidiary research purposes which were unrelated to the
main purpose of the present study. Therefore, these questionnaires were
not examined in the present investigation.

After the subject completed the questionnaires he was disconnected
from the polygraph. Before the subject left the experimenter tOld him
that while it was too risky to explain the experiment to the subject
fully at that point, he would be happy to do so at the end of the term.
The experimenter then gave the subject a card with the experimenter's

Office address and telephone.

ArousingSubjects' Motives

 

The procedure of the experimental session included several features
that were designed to increase subjects' level of motivational arousal.
These features included: (1) the anticipation of being video-taped and
watched while working on a problem; (2) the expectation that one would
be evaluated publicly; (3) the expectation that one would evaluate his
future partner publicly; (4) the knowledge that in order to do well on
the task, a pair of subjects has to demonstrate leadership and an ability
to cape with difficult problem situations; and (5) the fact that subjects
were tested alone rather than in a group. It was assumed that the

increased motivational arousal would enhance the impact of the threat

45

conditions on subjects' dominance and dependency motives, and, therefore,
would increase the probability that defensive processes in person per-

ception would be activated.

Dependent Measures I

The Measurement of Emotional
Autonomic Arousal

 

 

As was explained in the Introduction, level of anxiety-related emo-
tional autonomic arousal was measured in the present study by monitoring
subjects' phasic electrodermal activity (EDA). The two measures of
phasic EDA employed in the present study were (S)pontaneous Skin Con-
ductance Response (F)frequency (SF) and amplitude of Skin Conductance
Response (SCR). It should be noted that both the SF and the SCR measures
were computed fOr the hand that showed the_greatest reactivity during the

"Pro-Tape" period.

The SF measures

The measure of phasic EDA used to test Hypotheses I and II was the
frequency of SpontaneOus Skin Conductance Responses (SSCR) per minute.
For brevity sake this measure would be refered to as SF, which stands for
(S) SCR (F) requency. The SF measure is used to measure phasic EDA when
relatively sudden changes in skin conductance are observed that cannot
readily be attributed to one particular external stimulus. The number
of spontaneous skin conductance responses is measured over a period of
time and the resulting SF indicates the overall autonomic arousal during
the period of interest (e.g., Kilpatrick, 1972; Goleman & Schwartz,
1976; Hasset, 1978). Because of the considerable variation in amplitude
of SSCR among subjects, it was decided to institute two criteria for an

SSCR. A more stringent criteria (i.e., relatively large increase in

46

skin conductance) was applied to subjects who showed SSCRs with relatively
large amplitudes during the "Pre Tape" period. A less stringent criteria
(i.e., relatively small increase in skin conductance) was applied to sub-
jects who showed SSCRs with small amplitudes during the "Pre-Tape"
period. More specifically, if the subject's largest skin conductance
increase in 3 seconds during the "Pre-Tape" period was equal to or smaller
than 0.5 micromhos then the subject was assigned to the "low SSCR ampli-
tude" group. For subjects in this group, an SSCR was marked if an
increase equal to or greater than 0.1 micromhos had occured in 3 seconds.
If the subject's largest skin conductance increase in 3 seconds during
the "Pre-Tape" period was greater than 0.5 micromhos then the subject was
assigned to the "high SSCR amplitude" group. For subjects in this group
an SSCR was marked if an increase equal to or greater than 0.2 micromhos
had occured in 3 seconds.

A raw measure of number of SSCR per minute (SF) was computed for the
following time segments:

1. "Baseline" subperiod (MIN)

2. "Highest Frequency" (MAX)

3. "Observe Task" period

4. "Observe Interview" period

5. "Wait fOr Evaluation" period

6. "Final Wait" period

Although the Baseline subperiod lasted 10 minutes, SF were measured
only over 6 minutes, in the interval between the 3rd and 9th minute. This
was done because during this interval subjects seemed most relaxed. The
segment of the highest frequency was the 1 minute (between the end of
"Baseline" and the beginning of the "Observe Task" period) during which

the highest SF was detected. In line with the notion of range correction

47

(e.g., Lykken, 1972; Lykken, Rose, Luther, G Maley, 1966), SF measured
during the "Baseline" subperiod provided an estimate of subjects' lower
limit (MIN) whereas SF measured during the segment of the "Highest
Frequency" provided an estimate of the upper limit (MAX). An estimate
of subjects' range of SF was obtained by subtracting the MIN baseline
SF (MIN) from the highest frequency SF (MAX).

The final, range-corrected, measures of SF for each period of
interest were computed according to the fOllowing formula: SFx =
(SFy - MIN)/(MAX - MIN). SFy signifies the raw value of SF during the
period of interest. MAX is SF during the "Highest Frequency" segment.
MIN is SF during "Baseline." SFx signifies the SF during the period of

interest, corrected for range.

The SCR Measures

 

The measure of phasic EDA used to test Hypothesis III was the Skin
Conductance Response (SCR). Unlike the SF measure, SCR is used to mea-
sure changes in skin conductance in response to an external stimulus.

In our case, the external stimulus consisted of the semantic differential
scale which appeared on the TV monitor. The subject had 15 seconds to
respond1x>the scale. The SCR for each scale consisted of the increase

in skin conductance (in micromhos) during the interval beginning 1 second
before the appearance of the scale of interest and ending 2 seconds before
the appearance of the next scale. Thus, SCR is the increase in skin
conductance over the 14 seconds following the appearance of a scale.

Following Lykken's (1972) suggestion, SCR for each scale was cor-
rected for range. An estimate of maximum SCR was Obtained by measuring
the largest increase in skin conductance over 14 seconds during the "Pre-
Tape" period. Range corrected SCR for each scale was computed by divid-

ing the raw SCR for the scale by the maximum SCR.

48

To assess level of autonomic emotional arousal in response to
sociability related words (see Table l), the mean, range-corrected, SCR
for the 10 sociability scales was computed. The resulting measure was
called SCR Sociability. To assess level of emotional arousal in response
to competence related words (see Table 2), the mean, range-corrected,
SCR, fOr the 10 competence scales was computed. The resulting measure

was called SCR Competence.

Dependent Measures 11

 

The Evaluation Measures

 

Subjects evaluated their future partner via 20 semantic differential
scales. The scales consisted of bipolar traits chosen from Anderson's
(1968) likeability ratings of 555 traits. Each trait had either a
positive or a negative likeability value. The content of 10 scales was
viewed as socio-emotional. The content of the other 10 scales was seen
as reflecting traits related to task competence.

The 10 sociability scales each were randomly assigned to two sub-
groups, five items in each subgroup. The 10 competence scales were also
randomly assigned to two subgroups in a similar fashion. The order of

Table 1.--Adjective Pairs That Comprised the Semantic Differential Scales
of the Sociability Measure.

 

Warm - Cold Sincere - Not Sincere
Conceited - Modest Not Snobbish - Snobbish
Phony - Not Phony Showy - Not Showy
Tolerant - Intolerant Noisy - Not Noisy
Bossy - Not Bossy Patient - Impatient

 

Note: All scales were scored so that a larger value reflected a
more favorable value.

49

Table 2.--Adjective Pairs That Comprised the Semantic Differential Scales
of the Competence Measure.

 

Intelligent - Unintelligent Not Smart - Smart

Mediocre - Outstanding Decisive - Indecisive
Follower - Leader Submissive - Dominant
Inventive - Not Inventive Imaginative - Unimaginative
Insecure - Confident Incompetent - Competent

 

Note: All scales were scored so that a larger value reflected a
more fEVOrable score.
the four subgroups was counterbalanced using a ABBA/BAAB design. The
scales' order factor was completely crosSed with the motive, threat,
and actors factors.

The subject's responses on the 10 sociability scales were summed
together to produce a sociability scale. The 10 responses on the com-
petence scales were summed together to produce a competence scale. The
internal consistency (coefficient cc) of the sociability scale was .78
and the internal consistency of the competence scale was .96. The cor-
relation between the two scales was -.15 and was not significant

statistically.

CHAPTER III
RESULTS

Hypothesis 1: The Effects of Motives on
Emotional Autonomic Arousal in
Response to Target Persons

 

Hypothesis I predicted that perceivers' emotional autonomic
arousal would be affected by the degree to which the people whom they
observe pose a threat to their predominant motives.

Hypothesis I was examined through four analyses of variance per-
fOrmed on the SF measures taken during the "Observe Task," "Observe
Interview," "Wait for Evaluation," and "Final Wait" periods. The design
of these analyses of variance was a 2 (motive of perceiver: dominance
vs. dependency) x 2 (perceiver's score on reversal: high vs. low)

x 2 (motivational threat of observed interaction: dominance threat vs.
dependency threat).3 The results of these analyses that are relevant
to Hypothesis I are presented in Tables 3 and 4.

Inspection of Table 3 reveals that the expected motive of perceiver
by motivational threat interaction was statistically significant in the
"Observe Interview," "Wait for Evaluation," and "Final Wait" periods,
but not in the "Observer Task" period.

Inspection of Table 4 reveals that in three out of four periods, as

predicted, dominance oriented perceivers who were exposed to the

 

3 . . . . . .

Preliminary tests 1nd1cated that actor pair d1d not have a system-
atic affect on the dependent variables, sotxrachieve reasonable number of
subjects per cell, this factor was not included in subsequent analyses.

50

51

Table 3.--Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat Interaction and
Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat by Reversal
Interaction for SF Measures During Four Periods.

 

Motive of Perceiver by

Motive 0f Perceiver by Motivational Threat

 

 

 

Period Motivational Threat by Reversal
ANOVA §_ ANOVA.§_
Observe Task .01 3.54* .
Observe Interview 6.86** 4.28**
Wait fOr Evaluation 7.72*** 5.74**
Final Wait 8.43*** .08

 

Note: The number of subjects per cell ranged from four to eight;
df for subjects within conditions were 35; df for other effects were 1.

*2_< .07
"p < .05

***E < . 01

52

Table 4.--Mean SF as a Function of Perceivers' Motives and MOtivational
Threat Conditions During Four Periods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motive of MOtivat1onal Threat
Perceiver Dominance Threat Dependency Threat
Observe Task Period
Dominance .38 .26
Dependency .24 .13
Observe Interview Period
Dominance 1.07b .56b
Dependency .69a .98a
Wait for Evaluation Period
Dominance .74a .47a
’Dependency .32b .93b
Final Wait Evaluation
Dominance .75b .43b
Dependency .35b .76b

 

 

 

Note: The number of subjects per cell ranged from 10 to 12. Planned
comparisons (t-tests) were based on Winer (1971, p. 384).

8‘For each period, the difference between means marked by the super—
script n_was significant at the p_< .10 level.

bFor each period, the difference between means marked by the super-
script b was significant at the p_< .05 level. The planned comparisons
were made horizontally, within motive and between threat conditions.

53

"Dominance Threat" condition manifested a significantly greater increase
in SF (relative to their initial range) than dominance oriented per-
ceivers who were exposed to the "Dependency Threat" condition. The only
period in which the predicted difference was small and nonsignificant was
the "Observe Task" period. As for dependency oriented subjects,
inspection of Table 4 reveals that, in three out of four periods, as
predicted, dependency oriented perceivers who were exposed to the "Depen-
dency Threat" condition manifested a significantly greater increase in
SF (relative to their initial range) than dependency oriented perceivers
who were exposed to the "Dominance Threat" condition. Again, the Only
period in which the predicted difference did not emerge was the "Observe
Task" period.
Overall, then, Hypothesis I was strongly supported by the results
of the present study.
Hypothesis II: _The Joint Effects of Motives
and the Ego Defense of Denial on Emotional

Autonomic Arousal in Response
to Target Persons

 

 

 

Hypothesis II was examined through the same ANOVA's which were used
to examine Hypothesis 1. The results of these ANOVA's that are relevant
to our hypothesis are presented in Table 3. The means on which these
ANOVA's were based are presented in Table 5.

Inspection of Table 3 reveals that the expected motive of perceiver
by threat by reversal interaction occurred in the "Observe Task,"
"Observe Interview," and "Wait for Evaluation" periods, but not in the
"Final Wait" period. The interaction was statistically significant in

the "Observe Interview" and the "Wait for Evaluation" period. The

54

Table 5.--Mean SF as a Function of Perceivers' Motives, Reversal, and
Motivational Threat During Four Periods.

 

Motive of Score on Mot1vat1onal Threat

Perceiver Reversal

 

Dominance Threat Dependency Threat

 

Observe Task Period

 

Dominance .Low .27 .38
Hugh .49a .15a

Dependency Low .20 -.06b
High .28 .32b

 

Observe Interview Period

 

Dominance Low .55a .70
High 1.60“:b .43b

Dependency Low .59 .94
High .80 1.02

 

Wait for Evaluation Period

 

 

 

Dominance Low .43 .58
High 1.055“b .36b

Dependency Low .35 .66c
High .30d 1.21“d

Final Wait Period

Dominance Low .51 .38
High 1.00 .48

Dependency Low .22 .89
High .49 .64

 

Note: The number of subjects per cell ranged from fOur to eight;
fOr eaEH period, the difference between means sharing a common super-
script was significant at the p_< .05 level (planned comparisons, Winer,
1971, p. 384).

55

interaction in the "Observe Task" period was marginally significant at
the p_< .07 level.4

Inspection of Table 5 reveals that as predicted, in all four periods,
dominance oriented perceivers who were exposed to the "Dominance Threat"
condition, showed a greater increase in SF when they were high rather
than low on reversal. Although the differencein SF was always substantial,
and in the predicted direction, it only reached conventional levels of
statistical significance during the "Observe Interview" and "Wait for
Evaluation" periods.

As for dependency oriented subjects, inspection of Table 5 reveals
that in three out of four periods, as predicted, among dependency oriented
perceivers who were exposed to the "Dependency Threat" condition, those
who were high on reversal manifested higher SF than did those who were
low on reversal. The differences obtained were significant for the
"Observe Task" and "Wait for Evaluation" periods and nonsignificant for
the "Observe Interview" period. The difference obtained in the "Final
Wait" period was not in the predicted direction, and was nonsignificant.

Overall, then, Hypothesis II was generally supported by the findings.
Thus, as predicted, perceivers who were high on reversal tended to react
with greater emotional autonomic arousal when their predominant motive
was threatened then perceivers who were low on reversal. While this pat-
tern was demonstrated with a high level of consistency fOr dominance
oriented individuals, it emerged less consistently among dependency

oriented subjects.

 

4Since the pattern of means obtained during the "Observe Task" period
was as predicted (see Table 5) it is reasonable to assume that the
slightly lower level of significance obtained during this period was due
to the rather low level of SF exhibited by subjects during this period.

S6

Hypothesis III: Relative Reduction in Emotional
Autonomic Arousal Following Motive
Related Defensive Evaluation

 

 

Hypothesis III predicted that fOr dominance oriented perceivers
who would be exposed to the "Dominance Threat" condition, less favorable
evaluation of the dominant target person on sociability would be fOllowed
by a reduced level Of emotional arousal.

Hypothesis III was examined through a set of correlations computed
between sociability and SCR sociability for each of the four combinations
of motive of perceiver and motivational threat factors. For comparative
and exploratory purposes, the correlations between competence and SCR
competence, and general evaluation and SCR general evaluation, also are
presented. The results of these correlations are presented in Table 6.

Inspection of Table 6 reveals that for dominance oriented per-
ceivers who were exposed to the "Dominance Threat" condition, as pre-
dicted, less favorable evaluation of the dominant target person on socia-
bility was associated with reduced autonomic arousal. No relationship
between sociability and emotional autonomic arousal were detected for
the other motive by threat groups.

It is important to note that, in the present experiment, emotional
autonomic arousal was always measured after the oral evaluation. There-
fOre, the results of the correlational analysis can be more readily
interpreted in causal terms than is usually the case with correlational
findings. Overall, then, the findings obtained in the present investi-
gation provided strong confirmation for Hypothesis III, and suggest that
at least fOr dominance oriented individuals, motive related defensive
evaluation is likely to result in relative reduction in emotional auto-

nomic arousal.

57

Table 6.--The Joint Effects of Motive of Perceiver and Motivational
Threat on the Correlations Between Favorability of Evaluation
and SCR Scores.

 

Motivational Threat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motive of

Perceiver Dominance Threat Dependency Threat
Sociability

Dominance .Sl** -.27

Dependency -.02 -.02
Competence

Dominance .15 -.22

Dependency -.ll -.09

General Evaluation
Dominance .38* -.19
Dependency -.01 -.04

 

Note: The number of subjects per cell ranged from 12 to 13.
*p_ < .10

**p < .05

58
The Effects of Motives and Denial on Evaluation
Under ThreateningConditions

As was explained previously, the present study provided an oppor-
turnity to explore two questions regarding the effects of motives and
lego defense on evaluation under threatening, "negativity suppressing,"
conditions. The first question was whether the motives of dominance or
dependency would interact with the threat posed by the target persons to
each motive to affect the evaluation of the target persons on socia-
bility. The other question explored was whether the ego defense of
denial would interact with perceiverS' motives and the degree to which
the target persons posed a threat to these motives, to affect the evalu-
ation of the target persons on sociability.

The two possibilities discussed above were explored through an
analysis of variance performed on the sociability measure. For compar-
ative and exploratory purposes similar ANOVA's were perfOrmed also on
the competence measure. The design of these ANOVA's was a 2 (motive of
perceiver: dominance vs. dependency) x 2 (perceiver's score on reversal:
high vs. low) x 2 (motivational threat potential of the observed inter-
action: dominance threat vs. dependency threat). The results of these
ANOVA's that are relevant to the questions explored are presented in
Table 7. The means on which the ANOVA's were based are presented in
Table 8.

Inspection of Table 7 reveals that the relevant two and three ways
interactions were nonsignificant. The findings, therefore, suggest that
under threatening "negativity suppressing" conditions, the motives of
dominance and dependency and the defense of denial do not affect socia-

bility evaluations.

Table 7.--Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat Interaction and
Motive of Perceiver by Motivational Threat by Reversal Inter-
action for Evaluation Measures.

 

Motive of Perceiver by

Motive of Perceiver by
Motivational Threat

 

 

 

 

gependent Mot1vat1onal Threat by Reversal
easure
ANOVA §_ ANOVA.F_
Sociability .39 2.34
Competence .01 .46
Note: The number of subjects in each cell ranged from four to eight;

df for sfibjects within conditions were 38; df for other effects were

always 1.

Table 8.--Mean Evaluation Scores as a Function of Perceivers' Motives,
Reversal, and Motivational Threat.

 

Motivational Threat

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mbtive of Score on
Perce1ver Reversal Dominance Threat Dependency Threat
Sociability
Dominance Low 4.68 5.29
High 4.22 5.28
Dependency Low 4.17 5.77
High 4.62 5.23
Competence
Dominance Low 6.10 2.42
High 5.32 2.88
Dependency Low 6.23 2.91
High 6.04 3.32
Note: The number of subjects in each cell ranged from four to eight.

 

CHAPTER IV
DISCUSSION

Theoretical Significance of the Demonstration of
a Complete DefensiVe Process

 

 

The major goal of the present study was to provide evidence fOr
the operation of emotionally mediated defensive processes in person per-
ception. It should be recalled that such defensive processes were defined
as consisting of three essential components:

1. Arousal of anxiety--in response to the perception of a threaten-

 

ing stimulus.

2. Defensive cognitive activity--involving the denial or diminution

 

of the threatening aspects of the stimulus.

3. Reduction in level of anxiety-~following the defensive cognitive

 

activity.

In terms of the specific phenomena and procedure examined in this
study it was hypothesized that dominance oriented subjects who would
Observe persons who would pose a threat to their motives and would use
the evaluative activity defensively (to devalue the threatening persons),
would show a complete defensive process.

Results showed that as predicted, a complete defensive process,
including all three essential components, was evidenced for dominance
oriented individuals who used the evaluative activity defensively. More
specifically, these subjects showed an increase in emotional autonomic

arousal after they were exposed to motivationally threatening target

60

61

persons (i.e., first component), and after they devalued the threatening
target person on sociability (i.e., second component) they indeed showed
the predicted relative reduction in emotional arousal (i.e., third
component).

As was indicated in the Introduction, the concept of emotionally
mediated defensive process played a central role in many major theories
of personality and psychopathology (e.g., Adler, 1927; Freud, 1936;
Horney, 1945; Rogers, 1951; Sullivan, 1948). Similarly, the concept of
a defensive process has been widely accepted by psychotherapists and
psychodiagnosticians because of its considerable explanatory power. How-'
ever, despite the importance of the concept of a defensive process, and
despite the strong consensus among theorists regarding the essential
nature of such process, no experimental evidence was available prior to
the present study for the existence and operation of a complete defensive
process.

The present study, therefOre, showed fOr the first time that the
phenomenon of a defensive process indeed exists and can be demonstrated
in the laboratory. The ecological validity of this demonstration seems
substantial because the threatening stimuli were people with whom subjects

expected to interact, rather than pictures or words.

Additional Theoretical Implications

The Maladaptive Consequences of the , _
Defensive Cngnitive Activity of Devaluation

The concept of defense has acquired a central place in dynamic
theories ofrpsychotherapy and psychopathology because these theories
(e.g., S. Freud, 1936; A. Freud, 1937; Horney, 1945; Sullivan, 1948)
assume that defensive cognitive activity often has serious long term mal-

adaptive effects on the individual's life, despite the immediate

62

subjective feeling of relief it seems to bring to the individual. Thus,
it is assumed that because the process of abandoning one's defenses is
very painful, many individuals are reluctant to do so and, as a result,
continue to suffer throughout their life from the damaging effects of
their defense structure.

The defensive cognitive activity demonstrated in the present study
seems to be particularly congruent with the theoretical notion of mal-
adaptive defense discussed above. Thus, while the process of devaluing
other competent persons is tension reducing for dominance oriented
individuals, it is also likely to be socially maladaptive in the long
run. It seems reasonable to assume that withinirwide variety of social
settings, an individual who frequently devalues otherssuccessful people
is likely to encounter more and more resentment and hostility and less and
less cooperation and affection.

As a result, this individual is likely to feel isolated and disliked
by others. The feeling of being isolated and disliked will hurt most
human beings. However, according to the clinical Observations of Kern-
berg (1975), Horney (1945), Miller (1981), and Kohut (1977), lack Of
love is particularly painful for narcissistic individuais who are con-
cerned with power and dominance. According to these writers, narcis-
sistic dominance strivings are likely to develop as a defense against
and/or as a compensation for lack of sufficient love and acceptance by
the individual's primary love Objects. Therefore, dominance oriented
individuals are often more in need of love and attention than most other
peOple.

Overall, then, it seems that the defensive activity of detaluation

is likely to worsen the individual's social adjustment and, perhaps, also

63

to increase.the basic deficiency in love against which it was designed to
defend.

Inc Effects of Motives andEgoDenfeses on

Physiological Stress Reactions

While the major fOcus of the present study was on defensive person
perception, the results obtained also are relevant to the question of the
psychological determinants of physiological stress reactions. More
specifically, our findings supported the approach adapted by Lazarus and
Baker.(1956, 1957).. According to this approach, the amount of psycholog-
ical and physiological stress that people experience is determined by the
level of threat posed to their predominant psychological motives and by
the defenses they have developed in order to cope with such threats.

The effects of psychological motives and defensive styles on physio-
logical stress reactions and susceptibility to illness were recently
demonstrated by McClelland and his co-workers in a number of studies
focusing on inhibited power motivation. McClelland (1979) reported
that men who were characterized by the inhibited power motive syndrome
in their early thirties were much more likely1x>have high blood pressure
20 years later than were men with other motivational syndromes.
McClelland, Floor, Davidson, and Saron (1980) proposed that the expla-
nation for this relationship lies in the greater activation of the
sympathetic nervous system (which also characterizes Type A individuals)
and which could lead to chronically elevated blood pressure.

In a study designed to test this hypothesis, as well as a number of
other predictions, McClelland and his co-workers (McClelland et al.,
1980) found that individuals high in the need fOr power, high in inhib-
ition, and high in power stress (the HHH group) reported more frequent

and more severe illnesses than other individuals, and they showed above

64

average epinephrine excretion rates in their urine. McClelland and his
co-workers interpreted their findings as consistent with the hypothesis
that "a strong need for Power, if it is inhibited and stressed leads to
chronic sympathetic overactivity" (p. 11).

The findings obtained by McClelland et a1. (1980) are very relevant
to the results of our study, and therefore it is important to understand
the nature of the variables investigated by McClelland and his associates.

The variable of "activity inhibition" is measured through TAT
stories and consists of the number of times which the word "not" appears
in the stories written by a particular individual. Men who were high on n_
Power and low on inhibition were fOund to be less controlled in expressing
their sexual impulses, lied more, and drank more alcohol than other men.
Men who were high on n Power and high on inhibition drank less alcohol
and were fOund to be better managers than other men (McClelland et a1.
1980).

The variable of "power stress" measures the frequency of occurrence
of events related to the power motive in the life of a particular
individual.

The study by McClelland et al. (1980) seems to have demonstrated by
means of correlational methods a phenomenon which is very similar to the
one that the present study investigated experimentally. McClelland's
n Power corresponds to our dominance motive, inhibition corresponds to
reversal, and power stress corresponds to thermotivational threat factor.
The results of the present study confirmed the findings Obtained by
McClelland et al. (1980) in that high-reversal high-dominance subjects in
the "Threat Dominance" condition consistently showed the highest level
of autonomic arousal relative to the other seven groups of subjects (as

classified by motive, defense, and motivational threat).

65

The great similarity of the findings of the two investigations sug-
'gests that high reversal, high dominance individuals might be especially
prone to develop high blood pressure and a high level of susceptibility
to illness if the circumstances of their life would expose them to
repeated motivational threats (i.e., Murray's dominance press or
McClelland's power stress). This hypothesis can, of course, be examined
by means of empirical research. In addition, the relationship between
activity inhibition and reversal, as well as n Power and the dominance
motive also should be explored.

The Differential Effect of Motives on
Covert and Overt Behavior

 

 

The results of the present study showed that fOr threatened dominance
oriented subjects who did not use the evaluative activity defensively,
relatively favorable sociability evaluations (i.e.,.nondefensive evalu-
ations) were followed by increased emotional arousal. Thus, while
threatened dominance oriented subjects did not overtly ShOw negative cog-
nitive bias (relative to other groups of subjects) in their evaluation of
the dominant target person, their covert emotional reactions indicated
that fOr them, but not for other groups of subjects, the evaluative
activity had a clear and significant defensive function (as indicated by
the effect it had on subsequent emotional arousal). Thus, individual
differences related to the dominance motive were detected in subjects'
covert emotional reactions but notiJItheir overt behavior.

The notion of differential effect of motives on overt behavior as
compared to covert emotion is highly consistent with the basic assumptions
.of Freudian theory (Freud, 1927; Fenichel, 1945). According to this
theory, an individual's motives or impulses often are denied overt

expression by the person's Ego because their expression is likely to

66

bring negative social consequences. The principle guiding such an
inhibition is, of course, the reality principle. At the same time,
Freudian theory predicts that the inhibition of the overt expression of
an impulse (or an impulse-determined defensive activity) will result in
increased tension.

The results obtained in the present experiment seem to be congruent
with the Freudian paradigm. Thus, it can be hypothesized that strong
external normative pressure against negative public evaluation mobilized
subjects' ego (or reality orientation) to prevent the expression of overt
(counter normative) defensive behavior. The suppression of defensive
activity resulted in increased tension.

The Freudian perspective and the findings of the present experiment
both suggest that fOr people with a reasonably developed "Ego," motives
and personality dispositions will affect behavior only when the behavior
in question is not counter-normative. This principle or observation may
help to explain the failure of many studies to demonstrate the effects of
individual dispositions on behavior.

As was demonstrated in the present study, the failure to obtain
behavioral differences does not necessarily mean that the personality
variable examined in a particular study did not operate and affect sub-
jects differentially, at least emotionally. Rather, as in the present
study, it is pOssible that subjects' reality orientation (i.e., Ego)
prevented them from expressing their motives behaviorally while at the
same time responding to them emotionally.

The suppression of motive determined behavior in order to comply
with social norms and expectations may be especially expected in experi-
mental situations, because in such situations the approval of the experi-

menter plays a very important role (e.g., Rosenthal, 1964; Orne, 1962).

67

However, in less structured natural settings and over prolonged periods
of time, people are likely to exercise less control over the expression
of their motives (and motive determined defensive activities) and, con-
sequently, the effects of motives on overt behavior are likely to be
more clearly evidenced.

The Limitations of Schachter's Theory
of Emotion

 

Hypothesis III predicted that for dominance oriented perceivers who
would be exposed to the "Dominance Threat" condition, less favorable
evaluation of the dominant target person on sociability would be associ-
ated with reduced emotional autonomic arousal. As was shown in the
Results section, this hypothesis was confirmed.

The results obtained in relation to Hypothesis III might help to
demonstrate the limitations of Schachter and Singer's (1962) view
regarding the determinants of emotional experience. According to
Schachter and Singer, in order for people to experience an emotion they
first need to experience a state of physiological arousal. After they
have been aroused, people then utilize the cues that are available to
them to determine the specific kind of emotion that they experience.

While Schachter's approach has been useful in explaining a wide
variety of emotion-related phenomena, it cannot account for the results
obtained in relation to Hypothesis V. The Schachterian approach, in
fact, would most likely predict that for threatened dominance oriented
subjects, and all other groups of subjects, negative evaluation
would be associated with an increase or no change in physiological
arousal.

Viewed from a Schachterian perSpective, threatened dominance

oriented subjects experienced a situation of increased arousal and then

68

evaluated their future partner publicly. It would seem reasonable to
assume that most "Schachterians" would say that under such conditions
the public evaluation would serve to label and define subjects' specific
emotional state. Therefore, the more one would define his future part-
ner as intolerant, cold and bossy, the more one would be likely to feel
anxious and/or angry about the possibility of meeting with him. The
more one would feel anxious and angry, the greater his emotional auto-
nomic arousal would be.

A strict "Schachterian" can, or course, claim that positive evalu-
ation would create feelings of excitement, joy, and positive antici-
pation and in turn, a more negative evaluation would be associated with
less joy and therefore, less emotional arousal.

Such an account, however, does not seem plausible, since it cannot
explain why only threatened dominance oriented subjects showed the pre-
sumed decrease in positive excitement (and the concomitant decrease in
emotional arousal) after they evaluated their future partner less
favorably. From a Schachterian position alone we would not expect dif-
ferential results by motive groups. However, if motive groups were to
be considered, we would expect dependency oriented subjects to be at
least as excited about the positive socio-emotional characteristics of
their future dominant partner.

In summary, the fact that unfavorable evaluation was associated
with reduced emotional arousal for threatened dominance oriented sub-
jects only, suggests that in the present study the concept of motive
related defensive process was more useful for the understanding and pre-

diction of emotional behavior than was the Schachterian perspective.

69

Explanation for the Lack Of Interaction Effects
on Autonomic Arousal During the "Observe

-_

Tnpe" and "Final Wait" Periods

 

 

 

Inspection of Table 3 reveals a curious but unpredicted pattern:

On the one hand, the motive by threat interaction was significant during
the last three periods measured but not during the "Observe Task" period,
and on the other hand, the motive by threat by defense interaction was
significant in the first three periods but nOt during the last period,
the "Final Wait" period. The explanation for these patterns is not
clear.

One possible reason why perceivers' motives were not threatened
during the observation period might be that during that time perceivers
generally did not anticipate or think about their meeting with their
future partners. According to this explanation, the more one thinks
about meeting with motivationally threatening target persons, the more
one would feel threatened. The assumption that thinking about the
interaction with the target persons was threatening for subjects is rea-
sonable, because it is during that period that perceivers' motives were
most likely to be threatened, frustrated, or gratified.

It is interesting to note that this explanation is very consistent
with Miller's (1944) findings concerning approach-avoidance conflicts.
According to Miller, the closer one gets to the goal, the stronger the
avoidance gradient becomes. In our situation, the closer the subject
was to meeting the target person (in his thoughts or in reality) the
more he reacted to the threat posed by him to his predominant motive.

The lack of significant results for the motive by threat by denial
interaction during the "Final Wait" period is difficult to explain. The
interaction effects obtained for the first three periods were a function

of the increased arousal of high denial subjects whose motives were

70

threatened. High denial subjects were expected to become more anxious
than low denial subjects when their motives were threatened, because
they have little tolerance for anxiety. The lack of significant three-
way interaction effects during the last period was due to the fact that
high denial subjects whose motives were threatened did not show the kind
of increases in arousal which they have manifested in the previous three
periods.

One possible reason why high denial subjects whose motives were
threatened were less upset by their anxiety during the last period might
be attributed to the fact that after this period subjects expected to
meet the target person and, therefore, a high arousal level would seem

appropriate and would not provoke more anxiety.

The Effects of Motives on Evaluation

 

As was explained in the Introduction, the present experiment pro-
vided an opportunity to examine whether the effects of motives on
evaluation that were obtained in a previous study (Assor et al., 1981)
would be replicated under the more inhibiting, "negativity-suppressing"
conditions of the present experiment.

As was shown in the Results section, no effects of motives on evalu-
ation were evidenced in the present study. The lack of effects of
motives on evaluation in the present study stands in sharp contrast to
the positive results Obtained by Assor et a1. (1981), but is consistent
with the negative results obtained by Battistich (1979) under more
threatening conditions. The contrast between the positive results of
Assor et al. (1981) and the lack of effects of motives on evaluation in
Battistich's (1979) study and in the present study, suggests that motives

influence social evaluation mostly in nonthreatening situations, in which

71

the evaluator is not outcome-dependent on the target person and the
evaluation is private rather than public.
The Joint Effeons of'Motiggnnand the Egg
Defense of Denial on Evaluation

The present experiment provided an opportunity to explore whether
under relatively threatening conditions, perceivers whose predominant
motive would be threatened by a target person would evaluate that person
more favorably if they (the perceivers) would be high rather than low on
denial. As was shown in the Results section, the defense of denial did
not interact with motive of perceiver and motivational threat of the
observed interaction, to affect evaluation under the conditions of the
present experiment. The lack of positive findings cannot be attributed
only to the threatening, "negativity suppressing," nature of the experi-
mental procedure because inspection of Table 8 reveals a strong trend in
a direction opposite to the one predicted on theoretical grounds. If
the lack of significant effects was only due to the moderating or sup-
pressing effect of the threatening nature of the procedure, then we
should have observed a trend in the predicted, rather than the nonpre-
dicted, direction.

One possible explanation for the lack of effects of defense on
evaluation involves the instrument through which the defense of denial
was measured. It will be recalled that ego defenses were measured in
the present study by the Defense Mechanism Inventory (Glesser 8
Ihilevich, 1969). The DMI consists of 10 short stories, each followed
by 20 multiple choice items. In response to each story the subject
is asked to choose from.a number of possible reactions his most likely
response if the incident described in the story actually had happened to

him.

72

Inspection of the 10 stories of the DMI reveals that all of them
involve direct and unjustified frustration, attack, or damage to the
main character. As noted by Schill (1976), all those incidents can be
expected to evoke anger. In fact, since the frustration or attack are
clearly unjustified, the instigation to anger and aggression is very
direct and strong.

The type of responses available to subjects responding to the DMI
are rather extreme. Thus, in re5ponse to strong and direct instigation
to aggression, one can either endorse aggressive, suspicious, or self-
punitive reactions, or choose denial type of responses. Overall, then,
the DMI presents subjects with situations involving strong instigation
to aggression and then asks subjects to either endorse socially undesir-
able reSponses or deny their anger. Based on the above characteristics
of the DMI, it seems reasonable to assume that ego defenses (as measured
by the DMI) affect the individual's evaluative responses only if the
individual clearly perceives in himself an aggressive urge, and does
not have an Option of expressing his anger in an indirect, neutral, or
sublimated manner.

Given the nature of the DMI, and the conditions under which the
defenses measured by the DMI were expected to affect evaluation, it is
not surprising that the DMI did not predict favorability of evaluation
in the present study or in other studies (Kipper 8 Ginot, 1979;

Glesser 8 Sacks, 1973). Subjects in the present study did not expe-
rience a direct and unjustified attack on themselves. In addition, even
if subjects did feel angry they could express this anger in a rather
indirect way through the evaluation procedure.

In this context, it should also be noted that the sociability evalu-

ations were generally within the positive range (4-7) of the semantic

73

differential. Therefore, even those evaluations which were relatively
less favorable were not likely to be perceived by subjects as hostile.
Since the less favorable evaluations given by a subject were not per-
ceived by him as hostile, he was not likely to feel a need to deny them.

Defensive Versus Expressive Explanations
of the Finding§_

 

One of the more serious questions that might be posed about the
present study involves the nature of the process that was demonstrated:
Was it essentially defensive, or expressive and cathartic. Thus, the
present experiment could be viewed as a. demonstration of anger arousal
in response to motivational threat and anger reduction as a function of
devaluation. If indeed, this was the case, then the present study would
not have provided evidence for the operation of emotionally mediated
defensive process in person perception.

There are a number of reasons, however, why the process demonstrated
in the present experiment should not be viewed as fulfilling mainly a
cathartic function.

As was explained previously, the present study can be viewed as a
catharsis type of experiment. However, even as a catharsis study, the
present study differs widely from past catharsis experiments in the
type and potency of the anger provocation it induced. Past studies typi-
cally used a direct, rude, and clearly unjustified anger provocation,
such as insults, or rude and recurrent interferance with one's attempts
to concentrate on a difficult task (e.g., Hokanson 8 Burges, 1962;
Schill, 1972). The better controlled catharsis studies often made a
special effort to insure that the emotion aroused was anger, but not

fear (e.g., Kahn, 1966).

74

The reason that subjects in the present study might have experienced
anger is that their motives were indirectly threatened by mere exposure
to target persons who never addressed the subjects either directly or
indirectly.- Threat, by definition, involves the activation of appre-
henson, fear, or anxiety. Therefore, unlike the anger provocation methods
used in previous studies, the anger provocation "method" used in the pre-
sent study strongly intermingled arousal of anger with arousal of anxiety
or fear.

While the possibility of anger arousal without anxiety arousal
seems remote, the possibility that devaluation has a cathartic rather
than defensive effect seems, at a first glance, plausible. Thus, the
effects of punitive behavior toward a frustrator on reduction of blood
pressure were demonstrated by many investigators (e.g., Gambaro 8 Rabin,
1969; Hokanson G Shetler, 1961; Van Egeren, Abelson, 8 Thornton, 1978).
In the present experiment, public devaluation can be viewed as a punitive
behavior (verbal aggression) and as such could be expected to reduce
physiological arousal.

There are a number of problems with the cathartic explanation pre-
sented above. First, and most important, it should be noted that although
the catharsis effect was demonstrated for physiological measures of
cardiovascular activity (mainly dyastolic blood pressure) the evidence
with regard to phasic electrodermal activity (EDA) indicates that in

males, verbal enpression of anger and dislike causes a significant

 

increase rather than a decrease in_phasic electrodermal activity (Kahn,

 

1966; Frodi, 1978). Thus, the reduced arousal observed in the subjects
of our study cannot be attributed to a cathartic effect because no such
effect ever has been demonstrated fOr phasic EDA. The fact that in our

study less favorable evaluations were followed by reduced phasic EDA

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(for threatened dominance oriented subjects) suggests that the less favor—
able evaluations were not viewed by subjects as expressions of anger,

and therefOre, did not cause the increase in phasic EDA observed in Kahn's
(1966) and Frodi's (1978) experiments.

The notion that the less favorable impressions were not viewed by
subjects as expressions of anger or hostility was supported by the fact
that the less favorable impressions were generally still within the
limits of the positive portion of the semantic differential scale.

A second problem with the cathartic explanation is related to the
fact that even for blood pressure measures, the cathartic effect was
demonstrated only when the expression of anger was viewed by subjects as
legitimate, morally justified, not counter-normative, and not risky
(Hokanson 8 Shetler, 1961; Gambaro 8 Rabin, 1969; Van Egeren, Abelson 8
Thornton, 1978; Stone 8 Hokanson, 1969; Schill, 1972). In view of the
fact that subjects were not bothered or insulted rudely by the target
persons, and given the strong normative pressures against negative pub-
lic evaluation (Sears 8 Whitney, 1973), subjects in the present experie
ment were not likely to feel that verbal aggression toward their future
partner would be legitimate, consistent with norms, and not risky. There-
fore, verbal expression was not likely to help subjects to reduce their
blood pressure, much less their phasic EDA.

In summary, our survey of the different problems associated with
the cathartic explanation suggests that this explanation cannot account
adequately for the results obtained in the present study. In comparison
to the cathartic explanation, the defensive explanation seems much less
problematic and can better account for the results obtained in this study.

According to the defensive explanation, threatened dominance

oriented subjects felt somewhat less anxious after they had devalued the

76

target person because it helped them to restore their positive self-
evaluation in comparison to that person. (Because dominance oriented sub-
jects are interested in relative superiority, they did not need to evalu-
ate the target person in a very negative and hostile way in order to
reduce their anxiety. Instead, they evaluated the target person posi-
tively, yet clearly below their level, thereby avoiding the repercussions
of the negative evaluation while still managing to decrease anxiety.

The effect of defensive evaluation on emotional arousal was explained
so far as a function of the attempts of dominance oriented subjects to
maintain satisfactory level of positive self-evaluation. However, the
effects of defensive evaluation on arousal can also be explained as a
function of interpersonal, in addition to intrapersonal, defensive pro-
cesses. According to the interpersonal defensive explanation, dominance
oriented subjects devalued their dominant future partner in order to
impress the experimenters as superior to him. While under the "Dominance
Threat" condition, the demonstration of such superiority (relative to
the dominant target person) on the competence dimension was highly
unlikely, it was quite possible on the sociability dimension. This
might be another reason for the strong relationship fOund between devalu-
ation and reduced arousal on the sociability dimension as compared to
the competence dimension.

In summary, while the cathartic interpretation of the present exper-
iment seems implausible, it is possible that the defensive processes
involved were both intra- and inter-personal.

Limitations of the Present Study and
Suggestionsffor Future Research

 

 

The major limitation of the present study seems to be the lack of

measurement of Specific emotions as compared to the state of general

77

emotional autonomic arousal. Because anxiety was not measured directly,
no direct evidence for the Operation of a defensive process in person
perception was obtained. Similarly, the lack of direct measures of
anxiety and anger did not permit the conclusive determination of whether
the present study involved defensive, cathartic or both types of pro-
cesses. Although the differential measurement of emotion is still a
very complicated task, the positive results obtained in the present
investigation suggest that such an undertaking would be worthwhile.

(For different methods of measuring differential emotions, see Ekman

6 Friesen, 1975; Schwartz, Fair, Salt, Mandel, 8 Klerman, 1976; Ax,
1957; Levy, 1975).

Another limitation of the present study was the combining of two
situational factors in the motivational threat factor. As was described
previously, one factor involved the dominance and competence of the
target person which the perceiver expected to meet, and the other factor
was the level of discrepancy between the task competence of the two tar-
. get persons being observed. In view of the positive findings of the
present investigation, future research might profitably focus on the
examination of the contribution of each component of the motivational
threat factor to the effects obtained in the present study.

One apparent limitation of the present.study is the fact that the
second component of the hypothesized defensive process--defensive cog-
nitive activity-~was elicited by the experimental procedure and did not
emerge spontaneously. TherefOre, it might be argued that under "natural"
conditions of exposure to threat, in which perceivers would not be
"forced" to focus on the threatening stimulus, perceivers would not
engage in any defensive process involving active distortion. Instead,

they might, for example, turn their attention to another activity.

78

In view of the argument presented above, it should be emphasized
that the results of the present study Should not be interpreted as
demonstrating the occurrence of a complete defensive cycle following
the initial perception of a threatening stimulus. However. the findings
can be interpreted as demonstrating the occurrence of a complete defen-

sive process following re-emengence of the threatening stimulus. From

 

a theoretical standpoint (Freud, 1937), the limitation of the findings
to re-emerging or repeated threatening stimuli is not really a problem
because the major function of defense is not so much the initial
repression of the threatening stimuli but the continuing repression Of
these stimuli, especially under conditions in which they threaten to
re-emerge.

Another apparent limitation of the present study involves the
fact that the reduced level of emotional arousal after the evaluations
was not actually an absolute reduction relative to the pro-evaluation
level, but rather a relatively small increase in arousal. The lack of
absolute reduction in arousal would be.a problem if we were to inter-
pret the present experiment as demonstrating a complete defensive cycle
fOllowing the initial exposure to a threatening stimuli.

As indicated by the term cycle, under such conditions we would
expect that the defensive cognitive activity would reduce the high
level of emotional arousal produced by the initial perception of the
threatening stimuli. However, if the present experiment is viewed as
demonstrating a defensive process activated in response to the
re-emergence of the threatening stimuli, then the lack of.absolute
reduction of emotional arousal is entirely expected on theoretical
grounds. In a situation where a threatening Stimuli re-emerges, it is

reasonable to expect that perceivers' anxiety would increase. The task

79

of defensive cOgnitive activity under such conditions is to minimize
the increase in emotional arousal, as was the case in the present study.

Overall, despite the various limitations, the results of the pre-
sent study provided strong evidence for the operation of emotionally
mediated defensive processes in person perception. Contrary to past
studies, the present experiment demonstrated the Operation of all three
essential components of the defensive process in relation to one stimulus,
and the stimuli used were people rather than words or pictures. The
ecological validity of the study seems substantial because the stimuli
were peOple with whom subjeets expected to interact.“

In addition, the present study also demonstrated that threatened
psychological motives can Operate as activators of emotionally mediated
defensive processes in person perception. In the area of human stress,
the present study demonstrated the importance of psychOIOgical motives
and ego defenses as determinants of physiological Stress reactions.

In light of the_positive findings obtained in the present investi-
Agation, future research might profitably concentrate on the examination
of the Specific emotions involved in the processes demonstrated in this
study, and on the investigation of the different interpersonal and

personal consequences of defensive person perception processes.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRES

APPENDIX A
PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRBS

SITUATIONAL SURVEY
INSTRUCTIONS: Read carefully. (Do not make any marks on this booklet.)

On each of the following pages is a short story. Following each story
are four questions with a choice of five answers for each. The four
questions relate to the following four kinds of behavior: actual behav-
ior, impulsive behavior in fantasy, thoughts, and feelings. 0f the
four, it is only actual behavior which is outwardly expressed; the other
three take place only in the privacy of one's mind and, therefore, have
no external repercussions.

What we want you to do is to select the one answer of the five which
you think is the most representative of how you would react, and mark
the number corresponding to that answer on the computer answer sheet by
darkening the space marked three [3) next to that number. Then select
the 2ne_answer you think is least representative of how you would react
and mark it by darkening the space marked one (1) next to that number.
The other three responses should be marked as two (2). For example, let
us assume that out of the five possible answers to a question (e.g.,
numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), re5ponse number 7 is the one you consider most
representative of the way you would react, and response number 10 is
the least representative. In this case, the corresponding part of the
answer sheet would look like this:

6 0 O G 9 G
7 o O O 9 G
a o O G 0’ G
9 o O Q 9 6
1o 0’ O> G 0 6

Read all the five answers following the question before you make your
selections. In marking your answers on the computer sheet, be sure
that the number of the answer agrees with the number on the computer
sheet.

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81

There are no right or wrong answers here; the only thing that should
guide your selections is your own knowledge of yourself. Allow your
mind to imagine for a moment that the event described in the story is
really happening to you, even though you may never have experienced such
an event. When you select your responses remember we are not asking
which answer you like most and like least, but rather the answers which
would best and least represent the way zgg would act and feel in these
situations.

If you have no questions, please turn to the next page and begin.

Note: Be sure to write your name and the date, and darken the spaces
for your student number and sex on the computer answer sheet.

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You are waiting for the bus at the edge of the road. The streets

are wet and muddy after the previous night's rain. A car sweeps through

a puddle in front of you, splashing your clothing with mud.

A.

Bo

What wouldgygur ACTUAL reaction be?

 

 

 

1. I would note the car's license number in order to find out
whether the driver had a motive for splashing me.
2. I'd wipe myself off with a smile.
3. I'd yell curses after the driver.
4. I would scold myself for not having worn at least a raincoat.
5. I'd shrug it off, after all things like that are unavoidable.
What would_you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?
6. Wipe that driver's face in the mud.
7. Report that incompetent driver to the police.
8. Kick myself for standing too close to the edge of the road.
9. Let the driver know that I don't really mind.
10. Let that driver know that bystanders also have rights.
What THOUGHT might occur to you?
11. Why do I always get myself into things like this?
12. To hell with that driver!
13. I'm sure that basically that driver is a nice fellow.
14. One can expect something like this to happen on wet days.
15. I wonder if that fellow splashed me on purpose.

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D. How wouldAyou FEEL and why?

 

16. Satisfied, after all it could have been worse.
17. Depressed, because of my bad luck.
18. Resigned, for you've got to take things as they come.

19. Resentment, because the driver was so thoughtless and
inconsiderate.

20. Furious that he got me dirty.

In the army you hold a post of responsibility for the smooth Oper-
ation of an important department which is constantly under great pressure
to meet deadlines. Because things haven't been running as smoothly as
they should lately, despite your initiative and resourcefulness, you have
planned some changes in personnel fOr the near future.

Before you do so, however, your superior officer arrives unexpect-
edly, asks some brusque questions about the work of the department and
then tells you that he is relieving you of your post and assigning your

assistant to your place.

A. What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

 

21. I'd accept my dismissal gracefully, since the superior is only
doing his job.

22. I'd blame my superior for having made up his mind against me
even befbre the visit.

23. I'd be thankful for being relieved of such a tough job.
24. I'd look for an opportunity to undercut my assistant.

25. I'd blame my assistant fOr not being competent enough.

B.

D.

What

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would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

 

Congratulate my assistant on his promotion.

Expose the probable plot between my superior and my assistant

I'd like to kill myself for not having made the necessary

I'd like to quit, but one can't do that in the army.

 

I wish I could come face to face with my superior in a dark
In the army it is essential to have the right man in the right

There is no doubt that this was just an excuse to get rid of me.

I'm really lucky that I only lost my job and not my rank as

26.
27.
to get rid of me.
28. Tell my superior to go to hell.
29.
changes sooner.
30.
What THOUGHT might occur to you?
31.
alley.
32.
job.
33.
34.
well.
35. How could I be so dumb!

How wouldgyou FEEL and why?

 

36.
37.
38.

39.

40.

Resentful, because he had it in for me.
Angry, at my assistant for getting my job.
Delighted that nothing worse had happened.
Upset that I am a failure.

Resigned, after all, one must be satisfied with having done
the best one can.

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You are living with your aunt and uncle, who are helping to put
you through college. They have taken care of you since your parents
were killed in an automobile accident when you were in your early teens.
On a night that you have a late date with your "steady," there is a
heavy storm outside. Your aunt and uncle insist that you call and can-
cel your date because of the weather and the late hour. You are about
to disregard their wishes and go out the door when your uncle says in
a commanding tone of voice, "Your aunt and I have said that you can't

go, and that is that."

A. What wouldgyour ACTUAL reaction be?

 

41. I would do as my uncle said because he has always wanted what
was best for me.

42. I'd tell them, "I always know you didn't want me to grow up."

43. I would cancel my date, since one must keep peace in the
family.

44. I'd tell them it was none of their business and go out anyway.
45. I'd agree to remain at home and apologize for.having upset

them.

B. What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

 

46. Knock my head against the wall.

47. Tell them to stop ruining my life.

48. Thank them fOr being so concerned with my welfare.
49. Leave, slamming the door in their faces.

50. Keep my engagement, rain or shine.

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C. What THOUGHT might occur to you?

 

51. Why don't they shut up and leave me alone?
52. They never have really cared about me.

53. They are so good to me, I should follow their advice without
question.

54. You can't take without giving something in return.

55. It's my own fault for planning such a late date.

D. How would you FEEL and why?

 

S6. Annoyed, that they think I am a baby.

57. Miserable, because there is nothing much I can do.

58. Grateful for their concern.

59. Resigned, after all you can't get your own way every time.

60. Furious, because they interfere with my business.

You are extremely eager to do well in sports, but of all those at
which you have tried your hand, only in basketball have you been able
to achieve a measure of success. However, until now, whenever you have
applied for membership in a team or sports club, although the judges
have appeared impressed with your initial performance, their final
decision has always been the same-~they tell you that you've just missed
making the grade.

One afternoon your car breaks down and you are forced to take a bus
home during the rush hour. As you stand in the crowded bus, you hear
your wife's voice. She is seated together with the manager of the team
to which you have just applied. You overhear the manager tell her, "Your

husband has a nice style of play, we're thinking of asking him to join

our club.

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" Then you hear your wife laugh and reply, "Take it from me,

he hasn't got what it takes in the long run."

 

 

 

A. What would your actual reaction be?
61. I'd have it out with her.
62. I would greet her affectionately, as usual, when I arrived home
because I know she really appreciates me.
63. I'd be quiet and withdrawn for the rest of the evening, not
mentioning what I had overheard.
64. I'd take it in my stride, for women's talk is never taken
seriously.
65. I'd tell her that I wasn't surprised by what I'd overheard
because I had always thought she was two-faced.
B. What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?
66. Tell my wife that I overheard her, and was proud of her
frankness.
67. Break her neck.
68. Tell her that men eXpect loyalty from their wives.
69. Let her know that I'd always suspected her of talking behind
my back.
70. StOp off somewhere so I wouldn't have to face her.
C. What THOUGHT might occur to you?
71. I bet she talks about me that way to everybody.
72. What could I have done that makes her feel this way about me?
73. I'm sure she's only kidding.
74. One shouldn't be bothered by such talk.
75. She needs to be taught a lesson.

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D. How would_you FEEL and why?

76. Worthless, because I'd realize what a failure I was as a
husband.

77. Outraged, that she had spoken of me that way.
78. Unconcerned, because women are like that.

79. Furious, because her gossip has probably contributed to most
of my past failures.

80. Serene, because I know the manager will realize that she doesn't
know what she is saying.

At your job you want to impress upon your foreman the fact that you
are more skilled than your fellow workers. You are eagerly awaiting an
opportunity to prove yourself.

One day a new machine is brought into the factory. The foreman
calls all the workers together and asks whether anyone knows how to
operate it. You sense the chance you have been waiting for, so you tell
the foreman that you have worked with a similar machine and would like
a chance to try your hand at this one. But he refuses, saying, "Sorry,
we can't take the chance," and calls a veteran worker to come over and
try to get the machine started.

No sooner has the veteran worker pulled the starter, then sparks
begin to fly and the machine grinds to a halt. At this point the fore-
man calls and asks you if you still want a chance to try and start the

machine.

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What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

 

 

 

81. I'd say that I doubt if I could do it either.

82. I'd tell my fellow workers that the foreman wants to hold me
responsible fOr the machine's crack-up.

83. I'd tell the foreman that I appreciated his giving me the chance.

84. I'd decline, cursing the foreman under my breath.

85. I'd tell the foreman that I would try because one must never
back down from a challenge.

What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

86. Tell that foreman that he'll not make me the scapegoat for a
broken machine.

87. Thank the fereman for not letting me try it first.

88. Tell the foreman that he should try to start a broken machine
himself.

89. Point out to the foreman that experience doesn't guarantee
success.

90. Kick myself for talking myself into an unbearable situation.

What THOUGHT might occur to you?

91. That fbreman is really a pretty decent guy.

92. Damn him and his blasted machine.

93. This foreman is out to get me.

94. Machines are not always reliable.

95. How could I be so stupid as to even think of operating that

machine.

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D. How would_you FEEL and why?

 

96.

97.
98.
99.

100.

Indifferent, because when one's abilities are not appreciated
one's enthusiasm is lost.

Angry that I was asked to do an impossible job.

Annoyed that I was purposely put on the spot.

Disgusted with myself because I risked making a fool out of
myself.

On your way to catch a train, you are hurrying through a narrow

street lined with tall buildings. Suddenly a piece of masonry comes

crashing down from a roof where repairmen are working. A piece of brick

bounces off the sidewalk, bruising you in the leg.

A. What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

 

101.
102.

103.

104.

105.

I'd tell them I ought to sue them.
I'd curse myself for having such bad luck.

I'd hurry on, for one should not permit oneself to be diverted
from one's plans.

I'd continue on my way, grateful that nothing worse had
happened.

I'd try to discover who the negligent persons are.

B. What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

 

106.
107.
108.
109.

110.

Remind the men of their obligation to public safety.
Assure those men that nothing serious had happened.
Give them a piece of my mind.

Kick myself for not having watched where I was going.

See to it that those careless workers lose their job.

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C. What THOUGHT might occur to you?

 

111. Those men don't know how to do their job right.
112. I'm lucky that I wasn't seriously hurt.

113. Damn those men!

114. Why do these things always happen to me?

115. One can't be too careful these days.

D. How would you FEEL and why?

 

116. Furious, because I was hurt.

117. Angered, because I was almost killed by their negligence.
118. Calm, for one must practice self-control.

119. Upset by my bad luck.

120. Thankful that I'd gotten away with no more than a scratch.

Driving through town in the late afternoon, you arrive at one of
the busiest intersections. Although the light has changed in your
favor, you see that pedestrians are not obeying the "wait" sign and
are blocking your path. You attempt to complete your turn with due
caution before the light turns against you. As you complete the turn,

a traffic policeman orders you over to the side and charges you with
violating the pedestrians' right-of-way. You explain that you had taken
the only possible course of action, but the policeman proceeds to give

you a ticket nevertheless.

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What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

 

121.

122.

123.

124.

125.

I'd blame myself for having been careless.

I'd go to court and bring counter charges against the
policeman.

I'd ask the policeman why he had such a grudge against drivers.

I'd try to cooperate with the policeman, who, after all, is a
good guy.

I'd take the ticket without question, since the policeman was
just doing his duty.

What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

 

126.
127.
128.
129.

130.

Tell the policeman he can't use his position to push me around.
Kick myself for not having waited for the next green light.
Thank the policeman for saving me from a possible accident.
Stand up for my rights as a matter of principle.

Slam the door in his face and drive off.

What THOUGHT might occur to you?

 

131.

132.
133.
134.

135.

He's doing the right thing, actually I ought to thank him
for teaching me an important lesson.

Each man must carry out his job as he sees it.
This guy ought to go back to pounding a beat.
How could I be so stupid!

I bet he gets a kick out of giving tickets to people.

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D. How would you FEEL and why?

 

136. Boiling anger, because he's making trouble for me.
137. Resentment, because he's picking on me.
138. Ashamed, because I was negligent.

139. Indifferent, after all, this sort of thing happens all the
time.

140. Relieved, because I'd been prevented from getting into worse
trouble.

You return home after Spending two years in the army. At the time
you joined you had had a choice between enlistment and a position in
your father's business. You preferred the army despite parental advice.
Now that you are home again, you find that your range of Opportunity
hasn't widened appreciably. You can either join your father's business
or get a job as an untrained worker. You would like to Open a coffee
shop, but you lack the capital necessary to carry out such an enterprise.
After a great deal of hesitation, you decide to ask your father tO put
up the money. After listening to your proposal, he reminds you that he
had wanted you to take a job with his firm instead Of joining the army.
Then he tells you, "I'm not prepared tO throw away my hard-earned money

on your crazy schemes. It's time you started helping me in my business."

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What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

 

141.

142.
143.

144.

145.

I'd accept his Offer, since everyone depends on everyone
else in this world.

I would admit tO him that I guess I am a bad risk.
I'd tell him Off in no uncertain terms.

I'd tell him that I always suspected that he had a grudge
against me.

I'd thank him for holding a job Open for me all these years.

How would you IMPULSIVELY (in fanta§y) want to react?

 

146.
147.

148.

149.

150.

GO to work for him and make him happy.
Give up trying and end it all.

Take my father's Offer since Offers like that don't grow on
trees.

Let him know what a miser everyone thinks he is.

Tell him that I wouldn't work for him if he were the last man
on earth.

What THOUGHT might occur to you?

 

151.
152.
153.
154.

155.

He'll get what's coming to him one day.

Family considerations can't enter into business decisions.
Why was I so stupid as to bring the subject up.

I must admit that my father is acting for my own good.

This proves what I've su5pected all along, that my father has
never believed in me.

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D. How would you FEEL and why?

 

156. Angry, because he doesn't want me tO succeed on my own.
157. Grateful for his Offer of a job with a future.
158. Resentful that he is sabotaging my future.

159. Resigned, since you can't have everything your own way all
the time.

160. Hopeless, because I couldn't get my father's support.

Having just come out of an exhibition at the art museum, you stop
by tO visit yourgirl friend. You are rather exhausted but impressed,
and deeply inspired by what you have just seen. Referring to your visit
to the museum, you remark that it must be very exciting to be a creative
artist. Your girl friend asks, "Would you really like to be an artist?"
You reply eagerly, "Not a painter, but a ballet dancer! A ballet dancer
is what I've always wanted to be." Your girl friend jerks away from

you in dismay, exclaiming, "What kind of a man are you, anyway?"

A. What would your ACTUAL reaction be?
161. I'd tell her that it's Obvious now that she'd never liked me.

162. I'd tell her, "One's profession is no indicator Of one's
manliness.

163. I'd insult her.

164. I'd tell her that I'm sure she doesn't really mean what she is
saying.

165. I'd tell her how sorry I am to disappoint her.

96

H
II

Least Representative

In Between

M
II

Most Representative

B. What would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

 

166. Tell her I can't help being the way I am.
167. Leave, slamming the door in her face.

168. Assure her that I have no intention of really going into
ballet.

169. Tell her that she is ignorant about art and is just jealous
because she doesn't know as much about the arts as I dO.

170. Tell her that there is nothing unmanly about ballet dancing.

C. What THOUGHT might occur to_you?
171. I deserve such a rebuff.
172. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
173. She is an extremely limited girl.
174. This girl deserves to be taught a lesson she won't forget.

175. She really cares about me.

D. How would you FEEL and why?

 

176. Happy that she is so frank with me.
177. Annoyed at myself for discussing it with her.

178. Unaffected, because girls say things like that without really
meaning them. '

179. Angry because she is so stupid.

180. Furious that she dared tO speak to me in that way.

You and an Old school friend are competing for a newly vacated
executive position in the firm where you work. Although both your chances
seem about equal, your friend has had more Opportunity to show resource-

fulness in critical situations. Recently, however, you have successfully

97

1 = Least Representative
= In Between
3 = Most Representative

pushed through some excellent deals. In Spite Of this, the board Of

directors decides tO promote your friend rather than you.

A. What would your ACTUAL reaction be?

181.
182.
183.
184.

185.

B. What

186.

187.

188.

189.

190.

I'd try to find out which director "blackballed" me.

I'd continue to do my duty as a responsible person must.
I'd accept the outcome as proof that I'm not executive material.
I'd protest the decision of the board most vehemently.

I'd congratulate my friend on the promotion.

would you IMPULSIVELY (in fantasy) want to do?

Ask the board to reconsider, since a mistake would be detri-
mental tO the company.

Kick myself for having aspired tO a job for which I wasn't
qualified.

Show the board how biased they've been in their unjust treat-
ment Of me.

Help my friend make a success at the new job.

Break the neck Of each and every member Of the board Of
directors.

C. What THOUGHT might occur to you?

 

191.

192.

193.
194 O

195.

I guess I just don't have what it takes.

I probably wouldn't enjoy an executive position as much as the
one I have now.

There is certainly something fishy about the board's decision.
One must take a blow such as this in one's stride.

Damn that board of directors.

98

Least Representative

In Between

(N
ll

Most Representative

D. How would you FEEL and why?

196.
197.
198.
199.

200.

Happy that I still have the job I am used to.
Upset because my inadequacy was made public.
Furious at the directors because Of their treatment Of me.
Resigned, for that's the way it goes in the business world.

Angry, because I have been the victim Of an unjust decision.

99

PSYCHOLOGICAL INVENTORY

On this questionnaire you will find a series Of statements which
a person might use to describe himself/herself. Read each statement
and decide whether or not it describes you. Then indicate your answer
on the separate answer sheet.

In marking your answers on the answer sheet, be sure that the num-
ber Of the statement you have just read is the same as the number on
the answer sheet. Please answer evegy question, even if you are not
completely sure Of the answer.

For the first set Of questions, you will be asked to indicate
whether the statement is TRUE or FALSE as it applies to you. If you
feel it is true, mark a 1 on the answer sheet. If you feel it is false,
mark a 2.

l. I doubt whether I would make a good leader.

2. I think I would enjoy having authority over other people.

3. When in a group Of people I have trouble thinking of the right
things to talk about.

4. If given the chance [would make a good leader Of peOple.

5. In school I found it very hard to talk before the class.

6. I have not lived the right kind Of life.

7. I have a natural talent for influencing peOple.

8. I seem to do things that I regret more Often than other people do.
9. I am certainly lacking in self-confidence.
10. When I work on a committee I like to take charge Of things.

11. In a group, I usually take the responsibility for getting peOple
introduced.

12. I would be willing to describe myself as a pretty "strong"
personality.

13. There are times when I act like a coward.

14. I must admit I am a pretty fair talker.

15. I think I am usually a leader in my group.

16. I enjoy planning things, and deciding what each person should do.

17. I would rather not have very much responsibility for other people.

100

18. I like to give orders and get things moving.
19. I am embarrassed with people I do not know well.
20. I'm not the type tO be a political leader.
21. People seem naturally to turn tO me when decisions have to be made.
22. I dislike to have to talk in front Of a group Of people.

For the next set Of questions, you will receive pairs Of statements.
You will be asked to indicate which Of the two statements is more charac-
teristic of you. Choose the statement that is most true for you and
indicate which one you have chosen by marking a "l" or a "2" on the answer

sheet. If neither Of the statements is true, then choose the statement
which is least inaccurate.

 

23. l. I like my friends to show a great deal of affection toward me.
2. I like to become sexually excited.
24. l. I like tO be called upon to settle arguments and disputes
between others.
2. I like my friends to do many small favors for me cheerfully.
25. l. I like to keep working at a puzzle or problem until it is
solved.
2. I like my friends to treat me kindly.

26. l. I feel like criticizing someone publicly if he deserves it.
2. I like my friends to make a fuss over me when I am hurt or sick.

27. l. I like my friends to sympathize with me and to cheer me up when
I am depressed.
2. When with a group of people, I like tO make the decisions about
what we are going to do.
28. 1. I like my friends to dO many small favors for me cheerfully.

2. I like to stay up late working in order to get a job done.

29. 1. I like to form new friendships.
2. I like my friends to help me when I am in trouble.
30. 1. I like tO judge people by why they do something--not by what
they actually do.

2. I like my friends to show a great deal of affection toward me.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

101

I like to experiment and try new things.

I like my friends to be sympathetic and understanding when I
have problems.

I like to forgive my friends who may sometimes hurt me.

I like my friends to encourage me when I meet with failure.

I like my friends to feel sorry for me when I am sick.

I feel better when I give in and avoid a fight, than I would
if I tried to have my own way.

I like my friends to make a fuss over me when I am hurt or sick.
I feel like blamdng others when things go wrong for me.

I like my friends to be sympathetic and understanding when I
have problems.

I like to meet new people.

I feel that I should confess the things that I have done that

I regard as wrong.

I like my friends to sympathize with me and to cheer me up when
I am depressed.

I like to have my life so arranged that it runs smoothly and
without much change in my plans.

I like my friends to feel sorry for me when I am sick.

I like my friends to help me when I am in trouble.

I like to treat other peOple with kindness and sympathy.

I like my friends to make a fuss over me when I am hurt or sick.
I like to talk about my achievements.

I like my friends to be sympathetic and understanding when I
have problems.

I like to accept the leadership of peOple I admire.

I like to avoid sutations where I am expected to do things in

a conventional way.

I like my friends to sympathize with me and to cheer me up when
I am depressed.

When planning something, I like to get suggestions from other
peOple whose opinions I respect.

I like my friends to treat me kindly.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

102

I like my friends to do small favors for me cheerfully.

I like to judge people by why they do something, not by what
they actually do.

I
I

I

like my
like to

like to

skill and

I

I

I
a

I
I

I

like my

like my
like to

friends to help me when I am in trouble.

do things for my friends.

accomplish tasks that others recognize as requiring
effort.

friends to encourage me when I meet with failure.

friends to feel sorry for me when I am sick.

avoid situations where I am expected to do things in

conventional way.

like my
like to

like to

friends to encourage me when I meet with failure.

be successful in things undertaken.

be regarded as physically attractive by those of the

opposite sex.

I like my friends to show a great deal of affection toward me.

I like my friends to treat me kindly.

I like to have my work organized and planned before beginning
it.

I like to be the center of attention in a group.

I like my friends to make a fuss over me when I am hurt or sick.

APPENDIX B

EVACUATION PROBLEM AND MAP

APPENDIX B

THE EVACUATION PROBLEM

General Overview

 

The two subjects were asked to role-play or pretend that they are
part of the leadership of a small state in the 18th century. A remote
large valley was flooded and the people there face a serious danger of
drowning, starvation, and Spreading diseases. The two subjects were
appointed as leaders of an evacuation expedition that will depart from
the capital area, go to the flood area, and bring its 3000 inhabitants
back to the capital area.

The task of the subjects is to prepare the best plan they can for
the expedition and the evacuation. In order to do so, they have to
address and solve the following problems:

First Problem--Crossing the X River

 

AS you can see from.the map, the first problem is how to cross the
X river. The bridges are all destroyed and Since the Stream is very
turbulent, it is impossible to cross it by boats, rafts, or swimming.
The X river is 90 feet wide.

 

Second Proble --Influencing the mountain men

The second problem is how to influence the hostile mountain men to
let the expedition pass throughftheir terr1to_y. There are about
3000 mountam men and they are Spread all over the mountain area. The
mountain men dislike farming and are tough fighters.

The expedition needs to go through the mountains because it needs
to get to the secret tunnels (see map).

 

Third Problem--Opening_the tunnels

 

The third problem is related to the crossing of the Y river.
Because of the flood, there are no bridges left on the Y river, and it
is impossible to cross it by swimming, boats, or rafts.

The only way to insure safe crossing of the Y river is to use the
four secret tunnels to divert water (under the ground) from the Y to
the 2 river. As a result of the diversion, the Y river will become
more Shallow at the point below the tunnels, and could be safely crossed
there.

103

104

It should be noted that the existence of the tunnels is known only
to the leaders of the expedition, and that the tunnels have been closed
for many generations and it is possible that some dirt has accumulated
in them.

With regard to the opening of the tunnels, the problem is whether to

 

open the tunnels all at once or one at a timeyyand if one at a time,
whiCh tunnel to Open first.

 

Fourth Problem--Bringing back the evacuees

 

 

After the evacuation has started, the problem is how to bring the
evacuees back to the capital area safely and quickIy.

 

Fifth PrOblem--Preparingthe list

 

The last thing the subjects will have to do is make a list of how
many people, what kind of people, and what kind of equipment they want
to take with them.

 

 

105

THE EVACUATION MAP

 

   
  

cannon. - '
CEPARTURE POINT ¥

 

 

‘ g Y
r-—-——4
00 MILES
No‘rgt THE RIVER; AND Mawrmflg m rm: HM ARE Mar

DRAWN T0 SEALS .

APPENDIX C

MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, MINIMUM AND
MAXIMUM VALUES OF MEASURES EMPLOYED

IN THE PRESENT STUDY

APPENDIX C

Table C:1.--Means, Standard Deviations, Minimum and Maximum Values of
Measures Employed in the Present Study.

 

 

Name of Measure Mean 5.22.1355. “$213? ”$332“
Sociability 4.91 .91 2.60 7.00
Competence 4.40 1.71 1.40 6.80
General Evaluation 4.66 .79 3.25 6.85
SF Baseline .75 1.34 0.00 5.83
SF Highest Frequency 6.46 4.35 0.00 16.00
SF Observe Task .25 .34 -1.28 .89
SF Observe Interview .85 .62 -.33 2.70
SF Wait for Evaluation .60 .55 -.33 3.00
SF Final Wait .56 .44 -.33 1.75
SCR Competence .31 .27 0.00 1.61
SCR Sociability .29 .27 0.00 1.80
SCR General Evaluation .30 .26 0.00 1.70
Largest increase in Skin

conductance over 3

seconds 8.36 8.84 .20 33.00
Largest increase in skin

conductance over 15

seconds 14.70 14.42 0.80 61.00
Shortened Dominance

Scale 13.28 6.86 3.00 22.00
Succorance Scale 11.85 5.22 4.00 21.00
Reversal 37.19 7.98 23.00 53.00

 

106

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