The experiment was designed to study the effect of personal control, operationalized in terms of choice between a more demanding and a less demanding task, on persons with different levels of reactivity. Subjects were randomly assigned and individually tested in a 2 (High reactivity/Low reactivity) × 2 (Low rate of stimulus presentation/ High rate of stimulus presentation) × 2 (Choice/No Choice) factorial experiment with 15 subjects per condition. The two principal dependent measures were the total number of correct responses in a serial RT task and the post‐task levels of anxiety, anger, and curiosity. The major finding was that while the availability of control had a positive effect on both task performance and affect, its role was situation‐specific, i.e. limited to the difficult task. Most probably the availability of control masks the variability of reaction due to individual differences in reactivity. However, high‐reactives are still left with the residual stress of unresolved emotions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AbramsonL. Y.SeligmanM. E.TeasdaleJ. P. (1978). ‘Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation’, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87:49–74.
2.
AverillJ. (1973). ‘Personal control over aversive stimuli and its relationship to stress’, Psychological Bulletin, 80:286–303.
3.
BaumA.SingerJ. E.BaumC. S. (1981). ‘Stress and the environment’, Journal of Social Issues, 37:4–35.
4.
CohenS. (1980). ‘Aftereffects of stress on human performance and social behavior: A review of research and theory’, Psychological Bulletin, 88:82–108.
5.
DyckD. G.HoserC. G.JanisseM. P. (1987). ‘Type A behavior and situation–specific perceptions of control’, Psychological Reports, 60:991–999.
6.
EliaszA. (1981). Temperament a system regulacji stymulacji [Temperament and the system for stimulation regulation], Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa.
7.
EliaszA.WrześniewskiK. (1987).Temperament a ryzyko choroby psychosomatycznej[Temperament and a psychosomatic disease risk], Ossolineum, Wroclaw.
8.
GlassD. C. (1977). ‘Stress, behavior patterns, and coronary disease’, American Scientist, 65:177–187.
9.
GlassD. C. )1983). ‘Behavioral, cardiovascular, and neuroendocrine responses to psychological stressors’, International Review of Applied Psychology, 32:137–151.
10.
GlassD. C.SingerJ. E. (1972). Urban Stress: Experiments in Noise and Social Stressors, Academic Press, New York.
11.
JanisI. L. (1974). ‘ Vigilance and decision‐making in personal crises’. In: Coelho, G. V. , Hamburg D. A. and Adams, J. E. (Eds), Coping and Adaptation, pp.55–92, Basic Books, New York.
12.
KlonowiczT. (1985a). ‘ Reactivity and performance: The third side of the coin’. In: Strelau, J. , Farley, F. and Gale, A. (Eds), Biological Foundations of Personality and Activity. Psychophysiology, Performance, and Applications, Vol. 2, pp.119–126, Hemisphere, Washington.
13.
KlonowiczT. (1985b). ‘ Temperament and performance’. In: Strelau, J. (Ed.), Temperamental Bases of Behavior: Warsaw Studies on Individual Differences, pp.79–115, Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse.
14.
KlonowiczT. (1985c). ‘Warsaw studies in individual differences’, Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie, 6:215–231.
15.
KlonowiczT.ZawadzkaG.ZawadzkiB. (1987). ‘Reactivity, arousal, and coping with stress’, Personality and Individual Differences, 8:793–798.
16.
KobasaS. C. (1985). ‘ Stressful life events, personality, and health: An inquiry into hardiness’. In: Monat, A. and Lazarus, R. S. (Eds), Stress and Coping, pp.174–189, Columbia University Press, New York.
17.
KobasaS. C.MaddiS. R.CouringtonS. (1981). ‘Personality and constitution as mediators in the stress‐illness relationship’, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 22:368–378.
18.
LundbergU.FrankenhaeuserM. (1978). ‘Psycho‐physiological reactions to noise as modified by personal control over noise intensity’, Biological Psychology, 6:51–59.
19.
MandlerG. (1979). ‘Thought processes, consciousness, and stress’. In: Hamilton, V. and Warburton, D. M. (Eds), Human Stress and Cognition, pp.179–201, Wiley, New York.
20.
PittnerM. S.HoustonB. K.SpiridigliozziG. (1983). ‘Control over stress, Type A behavior pattern, and response to stress’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44:627–637.
21.
RotterJ. B. (1966). ‘Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement’, Psychological Monographs, 80: (Whole issue 609).
22.
SpielbergerC. D.WestberryL.BarkerL.RussellS.Silva De CraneR.OzerA. K. (1980). Preliminary manual for the State‐Trait Anger Scale (STAS). Center for Research in Community Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, South Florida.
23.
StrelauJ. (1983). Temperament—Personality—Activity, Academic Press, New York.
24.
StrelauJ. (1987). ‘The concept of temperament in personality research’, European Journal of Personality, 1:107–117.
25.
StrubeM. J.WernerC. (1985). ‘Relinquishment of control and the Type A behavior pattern’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48:688–701.
26.
WeidnerG.MatthewsK. A. (1978). ‘Reported physical symptoms elicited by unpredictable events and the Type A coronary–prone behavior pattern’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36:1213–1220.
27.
WrześniewskiK. (1984). ‘Development of the Polish form of the State‐Trait Personality Inventory’. In: Van Der Ploeg, H. M. , Schwarzer, R. and Spielberger, C. D. (Eds), Advances in Test Anxiety Research, pp.265–275, Erlbaum, Hillsdale.
