Comparison of Responses to Anticipated Stress and Stress

Baseline measurements of autonomic, metabolic, and psychological processes of young men were compared with their responses to anticipated hypoxia and hypoxia. Relative to their baseline levels, the subjects reacted differently to the anticipated stress--some reacted hardly at all, while others had an alarm reaction. Upon actual exposure to hypoxia (except for those compensatory adaptations specific to hypoxia) these general responses simply increased in magnitude in all subjects, i.e., they maintained their rank-order positions during the stress. Such suggests that the physiological response accompanying anxiety is a dimension of individual differences apart from that of the perceptual-experiential response.