Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the anxiety-reducing effects of preperformance information. Subjects were faced with the threat of electric shock and were given information about the charcteristics of the shock by direct (D. E) or vicarious (V. E) experience preceding the experimental session. These two kinds of information were manipulated independently, and the subjects who had either kind of information were compared with the subjects who received both types of information and the no-information subjects on H. R and AACL during the experimental session. Main findings were as follows. 1. In general, preperformance information about a noxious stimulus was sufficient by itself to reduce anxiety level. But these two modes of experience were somewhat antagonistic, and they might even be mediated by different information processing. 2. Direct experience lead the subjects to form accurate expectations about what would be experienced, and the congruency between expected and experienced sensations resulted in decreased anxiety during the encounter with the noxious stimulus. 3. Vicarious experience seemed to have little effect on anxiety-reducing, and the subjects who received V. E showed more overt signs of anxiety in AACL and higher physiological arousal during the experimental session than did those who received D. E.
