[Physiological and self-rated affective/cognitive responses of the neurotic personality to an interpersonal stress situation].
The effects of approach by an unacquainted male to high- or low-neurotic (on the MPI scale) female subjects on physiological responses (heart rates and eye blinks) and self-rated affective/cognitive responses (tension, anxiety and apparent size of the male) were examined. (a) In the first trial, non-neurotic subjects showed an abrupt increase of HR near the personal space boundary, however showed a rapid habituation at the second and third trials. In contrast, self-rated affection (tension and anxiety) increased gradually as the male approached, and habituation was slow at the later trials. (b) Neurotic subjects displayed higher tension than non-neurotic subjects, while tension, anxiety and heart rate were less habituating. (c) INDSCAL analysis revealed that these three self-rated indices clustered together, while the physiological ones did not. (d) It was suggested that the eye blink response had a tension reducing function.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety; D001767:Blinking; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D010550:Personal Space; D012858:Size Perception; D013037:Spatial Behavior