1992 Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 34-44
The purpose of this study was to discuss the following hypothesis: In the presence of another person, if the subject is in a state of subjective self awareness in which she can take herself to be an subject, her anxiety will decrease. On the other hand, if she is in a state of objective self awareness in which she will take herself to be an object, her anxiety will increase.
Subjects were one hundred ten female university students. The stimuli arousing anxiety were a horror video and a pornographic video. They were divided into the next four conditions for each stimulus. 1. Observed condition: Subject's face was observed under the anxiety arousing situation through the monitor television by another. 2. Observe condition: Subject could observe the face of another through the monitor television. 3. Co-presence condition: Two subjects watched the video in a room which was partitioned by a screen. 4. Alone condition: The subject watched the video alone.
The anxiety level during the anticipation period was measured by the heart rate as the physiological measure and simplified AACL as the subjective measure.
The results were as follows. 1. The anxiety level was not affected by the mere presence of another but by the difference of the situation of both subjects decided by the style of the presence of another. 2. The presence of another decreased her anxiety when the subject is in a state of the subjective self awareness in which she could observe another, but it increased her anxiety when the subject is in a state of the objective self awareness in which she was observed by another. 3. Aroused emotion varied, depending on the difference of the threatening stimulus or the threatening situation, and the qualitative difference of emotion affected, the anxiety level under the observed condition.
