Effect of Two Psychological Stresses on Adrenocortical Function

In a previous publication¹it was reported that the disturbing experience of being introduced into a strange and potentially dangerous place or of being subjected to an anxiety-evoking psychiatric interview raised the plasma level of the adrenal cortical hormone, hydrocortisone, in a group of anxious patients 40% and 28%, respectively. The increase in hormone level following the interview was also associated with a significant increase in emotional responses.²The present study is intended to extend the earlier work in two directions: to investigate response to another type of psychological stimulus and to make a comparison of normal subjects and psychiatric patients, which was not possible in the earlier experiment. We shall here compare the response of two groups differing considerably in anxiety-proneness to the same situation, and also two groups of the same (high) level of anxiety in response to two different stress procedures. The experimental condition used