Surprise versus suspense in the production of stress reaction.

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the relationship between duration of harm anticipation and magnitude of the associated stress response. 2 versions of a film portraying 3 wood-mill accidents were constructed. In the short anticipation, or surprise version, the 1st 2 accidents occurred virtually without warning; in the long anticipation, or suspense version, they were preceded by 20-30 sec. of clue-furnishing scenes. Results indicated that long anticipation was more stressful than short anticipation, consistently producing higher levels of autonomic disturbance. Moreover, most of the physiological stress reaction occurred during the periods of anticipation, rather than during the actual confrontations with accident scenes. Some harmful occurrences occur almost without warning while others come about slowly, allowing the victim seconds, hours, or days to anticipate their arrival. In commonsense language, both the shock of surprise and the tension of suspense are used to explain the stressfulness of personally damaging occurrences. However, in spite of the importance of the issue, and its salience with respect to many stressful life situations, there is little empirical evidence concerning the time relations underlying the production of stress reactions. The importance of anticipation of harm in psychological stress has been emphasized by Lazarus (1966) and is rather well documented. For example, Shannon and Isbell (1963) have shown that receiving a dental anesthetic injection resulted in no more increase in serum hydrocortisone than did merely anticipating such an injection. Barber and Coules (1959), using skin conductance as the stress-reaction measure, have reported similar observations with reference to the anticipation of an electric shock. Birnbaum (1964), assessing stress reactions to a motion-picture film in the authors laboratory, found that autonomic disturbance arose 1 The research reported here was supported by a research grant (MH-2136) from the National Institute of Mental Health, and a traineeship given to