Anxiety, Attention, and Coping with Threat.

It was hypothesized that anxiety provoked by a threat over which S had no control would lead to reduced responsiveness to stimuli in the periphery of attention, but that no such effect would be evident when S was given a means of coping with the threat. Ss threatened with shock performed no differently than an unthreatened control group on a tracking task occupying the center of their attention, but had significantly longer reaction times (RTs) to lights which went on occasionally at the periphery of their visual field. Ss told they could avoid the shock with good performance showed no such increase in RT. Some of the effects of anxiety were discussed in terms of these attentional changes. Anxiety is a response of an individual to a situation of danger, and is adaptive to the degree that it aids the individual in coping with the threat. Some threats may be coped with quite readily, whereas others offer little or no opportunity to avoid or reduce the danger. It might be expected that the consequences for psychological functioning of these two kinds of threatening situations would differ. It has been suggested that a major effect of anxiety is a narrowing and focusing of the field of attention, with heightened responsiveness to central cues and reduced responsiveness to more incidental cues (Easterbrook, 1959; Korchin, 1964). This formulation has proved useful in integrating many conflicting reports of the effect of anxiety upon performance, and also provides helpful clues about the experience of the anxious individual. The present study, therefore, attempted to gain further evidence of the "reduction of the range of cue utilization " (Easterbrook, 19S9) under anxiety and to determine how this may be modified when a means is provided to cope with the anxiety-provoking threat.