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The effects of observation on emotional arousal and affiliation
JOURNAL
OF
EXPERIMENTAL
SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
14, 256-265 (1978)
The Effects of Observation on Emotional Arousal and Affiliation BARRY FISH,STUART KARABENICK Eastern Michigan
University
AND MYRON HEATH Boston College Received February 2, 1977 This study assessed the influence of anticipated experimenter surveillance during the performance of a painful or potentially embarrassing act on affiliative preferences before engaging in that act. As predicted, there was an overall preference for isolation when the act to be performed was embarrassing, and this tendency increased with anticipated surveillance. There was an overall preference for affiliation under fear arousal, and this preference also increased with anticipated surveillance. Contrary to previous research, whether or not the potential affiliate was a subject in the experiment (i.e., in a similar or dissimilar emotional state) did not affect these tendencies. Possible ways of accounting for these findings are discussed.
Schachter (1959) demonstrated that fear arousal increases the desire to affiliate with others who are presumably in a similar emotional state (similar-state others). To explain this finding, he proposed that emotionally aroused persons seek interaction with others in order to provide a basis for social comparison. Several studies support this explanation (e.g., Gerard, 1963; Gerard & Rabbie, 1961; Rabbie, 1964). However, the generality of Schachter’s findings to all emotional states was limited by Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s (1961) finding that when persons were about to perform an embarrassing task that the authors labeled as highly “anxiety” arousing (sucking on nipples, baby bottles, etc.), they preferred to affiliate less with similar-state others than did persons in a low anxiety control condition. They concluded that whereas fear increases affiliation, Portions of this study were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Convention, Chicago, 1977. Requests for reprints should be sent to Barry Fish, Department of Psychology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. We are indebted to Dr. Jack Hollis for his comments on earlier drafts of this article. 0022-1031/78/0143-0256$02.00/O Copyright 0 1978 by Academic Press, Inc. AI1 rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
256
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
257
anxiety reduces it.l An additional limitation was provided by Firestone, Kaplan, and Russel (1973), who found that subjects preferred isolation in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo “anxiety” situation only when the potential affiliate was ostensibly in a similar emotional state. However, subjects preferred affiliation when the affiliates were not about to undergo the embarrassment arousing task (dissimilar-state others), presumably because dissimilar-state others would provide a source of distraction from the impending task. Other investigators have raised questions about what aspect of ern5tionai arousal situations are crucial for affihative vs isolative tendencies. For example, Lynch, Watts, Galloway, and Tryphonopoulos (1973) found affiliation vs. isolation preferences to depend on whether the person perceives his emotional responses to be appropriate or inapthat the critical propriate, respectively. Teichman (1973) suggeste component of Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s “anxiety” m ipulation was the “embarrassment” or social ridicule anticipated when sucking on objects (cf. also, Buck & Park, 1972). She argued that without this specific component, isolation would not have been preferred. Teiehman proposed that a condition that engendered “general anxiety” but not embarrassment (telling subjects they would participate in a ‘“self-disclosure” situation without specifying exactiy what was expected of them in that situation) would increase affiliation in the same manner as fear. study compared high vs low general anxiety conditions to Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s specific conditions. As predicted, affihative preferences were higher in the general than in the specific anxiety condition. While Teichman’s data suggest that embarrassment plays a role in the decision to avoid affiliation, her general anxiety condition differed in several respects from the embarrassment condition used by Sarnoff and Zimbardo. Thus, it is possible that factors other than the reduced level of embarrassment may have increased affihative preferences under general anxiety conditions. For example, Teichman’s task required a verbal interaction with two interviewers while the original Sarnoff and Zimbardo task involved electrical measurements of a subject’s physiological responses while sucking on infantile objects. In addition, since the extent of self-disclosure was unspecified in Teichman’s condition, subjects may have desired affiliation to determine what others felt an appropriate amount of disclosure to be. This ambiguity was ’ Sarnoffand Zimbardo referred to this situation as “anxiety” arousing under the assumption that infantile “oral libido” had been aroused which generated concern abotit potential social disapproval from others. Although the term anxiety has been retained as a label for the sucking behavior condition in subsequent studies (e.g., Firestone, Kaplan. and Russell, 1973) the present study will use the term “embarrassment” which we propose is the critical factor for what is taking place. One purpose of this study is in fact to deter-mine whether that label is more appropriate than “anxiety.“
258
FISH,
KARABENICK,
AND
HEATH
not present in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo condition, where instructions left little room for doubt about the exact performance expected. The present study sought to provide more direct evidence for the role of embarrassment in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo “anxiety” condition. We did this by manipulating the situational characteristics assumed to produce embarrassment without changing the central features of the situation involved. A prominent feature of the Sarnoff and Zimbardo emotional arousal procedure (also used in subsequent investigations) in a slide presentation depicting a subject about to undergo his ordeal. In these scenes, an experimenter is standing close by, observing the subject’s reaction. It is reasonable to assume that persons viewing these slides expect the experimenter’s presence (i.e., an audience) during the testing situation. Suppose that embarrassment, and the consequent apprehension about revealing this embarrassment to others, is a critical determinant of the desire not to affiliate in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo manipulation, and that anticipated observation is a major contributor to this emotion. Then, the desire to be isolated should decrease as the anticipated privacy of the subject’s behavior increases, even when the behavior itself remains constant. To test this hypothesis, three observation levels were established. In one, subjects were led to believe that the experimenter would be present and also that their emotional responses would be electronically recorded. In the second, subjects were also told that their emotional responses would be permanently recorded, but it was made clear that the experimenter would not be observing the subject during this period. In the third, subjects were told that the experimenter would be absent and that no permanent record would be kept of their responses. The three observation levels were factorially combined with type of emotion arousal (embarrassment and fear). In addition, the type of affiliative target (similar or dissimilar-state other) was varied to determine whether the results of Firestone et al. (1973) would replicate and also whether the effect of target would vary with changes in observation level. Subjects were then told that there would be a delay before they engaged in the task, and were asked to what extent they preferred to wait alone or in the company of others. (Depending upon the target condition, these others were described as either coparticipants in the study or persons taking part in an unrelated experiment down the hall.) Self-report measures of fear, anxiety, and embarrassment were also obtained. Under embarrassment conditions, subjects were expected to prefer isolation; however, this preference was expected to decrease as the level of anticipated observation decreased. Under fear conditions, subjects were expected to prefer affiliation to isolation; however, there was no a priori reason to expect this preference to vary with observation level,
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
25
since subjects’ fear of shock was not expected to depend upon whether or not they anticipated being observed. Finally, based on the interpretation given to Firestone et al.‘s (1973) findings, the isolation-affiliation relations described above were expected only when the emotional state of the persons available to affiliate with was similar to that of the subject; opposite relations were expected when these persons were in a dissimilar emotional state. METHOD
Subjects Complete data were obtained from 120 male volunteers from introductory psychology classes. Subjects were scheduled in groups of three; each group was randomly assigned to one of 12 experimental conditions, resulting from a 2 x 3 x 2 between-subjects factorial design involving arousal type (fear vs embarrassment), observation level (high. medium, and low), and state of affiliative target (similar or dissimilar to the subject). Nine subjects were excluded from the experiment and replaced because they had previously known each other (5), misunderstood the instructions (2), did not believe the rationale (1), or elected not to continue as participants in the “stimulation” portion of the experiment (1). Undergraduate confederates were used to complete subject triads on occasions when this was necessary although, of course, their data were not included in the analyses.
Procedure Each individual within a group was assigned to arrive at a different reporting destination. When all of the subjects were present at their stations, the experimenter, wearing a white laboratory coat, introduced himself. The participants were then ushered into an apparatusladen research room. To avoid the development of superficial friendships during the experiment and to eliminate the possibility that subjects might react to cues from one another, the subjects were separated by high partitions and no communication was allowed. As in previous research, subjects were told this was a study in physiological psychology concerning the “reactions of the sense organs to various kinds of stimulation.” Subjects were told that it was necessary to assess their base rates of responding prior to the application of the actual stimuli, and they were led to believe that their individual sensitivities were being recorded (by wires attached to them and an operating polygraph) while they viewed a series of slides of a typical subject who had participated in the experiment. To provide a reasonable basis for asking the subjects to wait in other rooms (and thus for making the choice between affiliation and isolation), they were then told a period of time was necessary to adjust the equipment to their individual sensitivities. It was made clear to the subjects that they were to be tested individually during the “actual” experiment. Instructions were presented via a taperecording and slide presentation. The instructions to subjects in the high observation conditions were identical to the fear and anxiety manipulations used by Sarnoff and Zimbardo (1961) and Firestone et al. (1973). The only differences in the instructions given to the other groups consisted of information designed to manipulate the extent to which the subjects expected to be observed. In high observation conditions subjects were told that the experimenter would be present to “watch your reactions and record your readings,” while under medium observa?ion conditions they were told that “although a record of your physiological responses will be taken, no one will be in the room, nor will anyone observe you for the duration of the
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AND HEATH
experiment.” Subjects in low observation conditions were told that no one would be present and that no permanent record would be made of their reactions. Instead, they were informed that they should observe their physiological reactions on an oscilloscope and report them to the researcher at the end of the experiment. A slide presentation during the experiment served two purposes. The content of the slides (appropriate to each experimental treatment) served to reinforce the subjects’ differential expectations of the nature of the stimulus situation. Furthermore, the person seen in the slides became a focal point for measuring the effectiveness of the experimental manipulations. Immediately after the slides were shown, but before the affiliation choice had been made, the subjects were given a questionnaire designed to assess their estimate of the fear, anxiety, and embarrassment levels of the subject in the slide. Subjects were asked to estimate these feelings by circling the word(s) “not at all,” “slightly,” “moderately,” or “very” that described the extent to which each of the emotions was felt. These ratings, along with subjects’ ratings of the other participants’ emotional states, were considered to be projective in nature, since the lack of opportunity for objective appraisal forced the subject to use his own responses as a measure of these others’ arousal. A third set of scales asked for a direct self-report of the subjects’ own feelings. Subjects then indicated their preference to wait alone or in the company of others. Under similar-state conditions, these others were ostensibly the subjects’ coparticipants in the study. Under dissimilar-state conditions, the others were described as students “taking part in an unrelated experiment down the hall.” These manipulations are identical to those used by Firestone et al. (1973). After the slides were presented, subjects were instructed that a waiting period would follow and that in the second, major part of the experiment their direct reactions to the actual stimuli would be measured. The subjects were then told that due to limited space it was not possible for everyone to get an individual room. Therefore, “to accomodate everyone fairly,” they were requested to indicate how strongly they preferred to wait alone or together. Subjects indicated their preference for waiting alone or with others, and then reported the intensity of this preference on a scale from 0 (very weak preference) to 100 (very strong preference).
RESULTS
Manipulation
Checks
To determine if manipulations had their intended emotional impact, subjects’ ratings of their emotional reactions were analyzed as a function of arousal condition (fear vs embarrassment), observation level (high, medium, low), state of affiliative target (similar vs. dissimilar), rating dimension (fear, embarrassment, anxiety), and rating target (self, person in slide, companions in the study). The latter two dimensions involved within-subject comparisons. The interaction of arousal condition and rating dimension was significant, F(2,216) = 68.52, p < .OOl. However, the nature of this interaction was contingent upon both observation level (F(2,216) = 3.03, p < .05), and rating target (F(4,432) = 2.16, p < .05). Data pertainipg to the first of these contingencies are shown in Table 1. Fear ratings across observation levels were significantly higher under fear than under embarrassment conditions, while embarrassment ratings
26
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION TABLE
1
Rating dimension Arousal condition
Observation level
Fear
Embarrassment
High Medium Low Total
1.13 1.60 1.18 1.30’
Fear
High Medium Low Total
2.48 2.01 1.78 2.110
Embarrassment
Anxiety
Total
1.97 2.02 1.80 1.936
1.82 2.27 1.90 I.996
1.64 1.96 1.63 1.74
1.27 1.10 1.32 1.23’
2.42 1.94 I.92 2.08”
2.06 1.70 1.67 1.8i
a The rating scale ranged between 1 = not at all, to 4 = very. b,eMeans (totals across observation levels) with same superscript are not significantly different from each other; other comparisons: p < .01.
were significantly higher under embarrassment than under fear conditions. Anxiety ratings did not differ as a function of conditions. As evident from the above mentioned contingency involving rating target, these differences were greater in the case of self-ratings than in the case of ratings of other participants or of the person depicted in the slide. However, the pattern was the same for a11 targets. Thus, the interpretation of the Sarnoff and Zimbardo condition as one of embarrassment arousal is justified. The contingencies involving observation level were small and difficult to interpret. Under embarrassment conditions, ratings of all three emotions were higher when the observation level was moderate than wher! it was either high or low. Under fear conditions, both fear and anxiety ratings increased with observation level, whereas embarrassment ratings did not. Correlations among emotional ratings were computed within arousal conditions and are shown in Table 2. Fear and anxiety ratings were correlated in both conditions, while embarrassment ratings were essentially independent of both fear and anxiety. Emotional
Arousal and Affiliative
Tendency
Preferences to affiliate with others were assessed in two related ways: Choice of alone vs together and strength of preference. Strength of preference scores were transformed to a single scale with values from 0 to -100 indicating an increasing preference for isolation, and from 0 to 100 an increasing desire for affiliation
262
FISH, KARABENICK, TABLE
CORRELATIONSAMONGEMOTIONAL Arousal condition Fear
Embarrassment
AND HEATH 2
AROUSALRATINGSANDAFFILIATIVETENDENCY
Rating dimension
Fear
Fear Embarrassment Anxiety
-.07 .60”
Fear Embarrassment Anxiety
-.17 .57”
Embarrassment
Affiliative tendency
.06
.32a .03 .38”
.12
.1.5 -.I3 .04
“p < .05. bp < .Ol. cp < .OOl.
Both dependent variables were analyzed using analysis of variance.2 The proportion of persons opting to affiliate with others was significantly higher in the fear (82%) than in the anxiety (42%) arousal conditions, F( 1,108) = 27.17, p < .OOl. Likewise, the strength of affiliative choice was significantly greater in the fear (x = 26) than anxiety (k = -10) conditions, F(l,lOS) = 23.74, p < .OOl. However, the arousal condition x observation level interaction was significant for both affiliative choice, F(2,108) = 3.43, p < .05, and strength of choice, F(2,108) = 4.35, p < .05. The nature of these interactions is shown in Fig. 1. As expected, subjects’ preference for affiliation in the embarrassment condition increased with the anticipated privacy of their impending behavior. However, the tendency to affiliate in the fear arousal condition decreased as the privacy of the impending behavior increased. The relation between emotional arousal and affiliative tendency is also suggested by the correlations between subjects’ self-ratings of their reactions and strength of affiliation preferences. These correlations are shown in Table 2. Under fear conditions, both fear and anxiety ratings were correlated significantly positive with preference for affiliation but embarrassment ratings were not. Under embarrassment conditions, however, neither fear nor anxiety ratings were significantly correlated with preferences for affiliation, whereas embarrassment ratings were correlated nonsignificantly negative with these preferences. It might be noted that the negative correlation between embarrassment ratings and 2 The justification for analyzing the dichotomous choice measure using analysis of variance is given by Lunney (1970). This analysis is done by assigning 1 for alone and 2 for together. He suggested at least 40 df in the error term when proportions in cells were extreme (e.g., less than .20 orgreater than .80). The present analyses had minimumdfs of 108.
EFFECTS
HIGH
MEDIUM
263
OF OBSERVATION
LOW
OBSERVATION
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
LEVEL
FIG. 1. Choice and strength of affiliation as a function of emotional arousal and observation level.
affiliation was marginally different from that between fear and affiliation in the anxiety condition (-15 vs - .13, t(58) = 1.67, p < .10, two tailed). None of the effects involving affiliative target (similar- vs dissimilarstate other) was significant for either dependent measure. Thus, despite the careful attempt to reestablish the conditions present in Firestone et al. (1973), there is no evidence to substantiate their state of affliative target effect. DlSClJSSlON The results of this study suggest that the affiliative effects of “anxiety” arousal employed in previous research (Firestone et al., 1973; Sarnoff & Zimbardo, 1961) are attributable instead to embarrassment. Three aspects of these results are of particular importance in this regard. First, subjective ratings of fear and embarrassment differed in the predicted way between arousal conditions, whereas anxiety ratings did not. Second, arousal conditions experienced as uniquely embarrassing were marked by preferences for isolation. Third, isolative tendencies under conditions marked by embarrassment decreased in direct correspondence with the degree of anticipated monitoring (80% with high, 45% with low monitoring), though the subjects’ task remained the same. Contrary to expectation, however, self-reports of embarrassment
264
FISH,
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AND
HEATH
did not consistently increase with observation level. This presents a problem in interpreting the results. It may be that people are unable to discriminate embarrassment as finely as fear, perhaps because they are more familiar with the latter emotion. It is also possible that while embarrassment is the factor that leads to a general preference for isolation under these conditions, other cognitive and/or emotional factors may be responsible for observation level effects. The data do not permit further specification of what these factors may be, however. Also unanticipated was the finding that under fear conditions, selfreported fear anxiety, and also affiliative preferences, increased with observation level. It is not apparent why the anticipated pain from shock would depend on an observer being present at the time it was administered. One possible explanation is that persons anticipated a less dangerous shock when administered in the absence of the experimenter. However, since no measure of perceived anticipated shock level was obtained, there is no way to evaluate this possibility directly. A third unexpected finding was the failure for affiliative preferences to depend upon whether the potential affiliate’s emotional state was similar to that of the subject. In contrast to previous findings (Firestone et al., 1973), persons responded no differently to the prospect of waiting with nonparticipants than they did to the prospect of waiting with coparticipants in the study. Since great pains were taken in the present study to insure conditions comparable to Sarnoff and Zimbardo and Firestone et al. (and an analysis of subjects’ fear and anxiety ratings revealed these emotional levels to be virtually equivalent to Firestone et al.) an explanation of the absence of affiliation effects is not likely found in treatment differences between the studies. Furthermore, the other effects (of fear vs embarrassment and the resulting affiliative patterns with similarstate others) WeYe found. Firestone et al. assumed that embarrassed (referred to by them as “anxious”) subjects would seek out dissimilar others as a source of distraction, i.e., to avoid thinking about the impending stressful event. While distraction may be possible and desirable for disturbing events in the not too immediate future, it seems unlikely that people would be desirous or capable of diverting their attention from a highly arousing event moments before its occurrence. Perhaps affiliation is not an allpurpose bromide, and some types of misery (embarrassment) do not prefer any type of company. In any event, the present study represents a failure to replicate the previous finding. The impact of the experimenter’s anticipated presence found here suggests that this variable should receive more attention in future studies. While the expectation of being observed acted to enhance existing tendencies in the present study (perhaps an anticipated social facilitation effect, see Zajonc, 1965) the potential for more complicated interaction
26.5
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
effects with other experimentally considered.
generated
emotional
states must be
REFERENCES Buck, R., & Parke, R. Behavioral and physiological responses to the presence of a friendly or neutral person in two types of stressful situations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24, 143-153. Cicchetti, D. V. Extention of multiple-range tests to interaction tables in the analysis of variance. A rapid approximate solution. Psychological Bulletin, 1972, 77, 40.5-408. Firestone, I., Kaplan, K., & Russel, 3. Misery sometimes loves nonmiserable company. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973. 26, 409-414. Gerard, H. B. Emotional uncertainty and social comparison. Journal of Abnormal Grid Social
Psychology,
1963, 66, 568-573.
Gerard, H. B., & Rabbie, J. M. Fear and social comparison. Journal of Abnormrri and Social Psychology, 1961, 62, 586-592. Lunney. G. H. Using analysis of variance with a dichotomous dependent variable: An empirical study. Journal of Educational Measurement, 1970, 7, 263-269. Lynch, S., Watts, W. A., Galloway, C., & Tryphonopoulos, S. Appropriateness of anxiety and drive for affiliation. Journal of Research in Personality, 1973, 7, 71-77. Rabbie, 4. M. Differential preference for companionship under threat. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964, 67, 643-648. Sarnoff, I., & Zimbardo, P. G. Anxiety, fear, and social affiliation. Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology,
1961, 62, 597-605.
Schachter, S. The psychology of affiliation. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1959. Teichman, Y. Emotional arousal and affiliation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychoiogy, 1973, 9, 591-605. Zajonc, R. B. Social facilitation. Science, 1965, 149, 269-274.
OF
EXPERIMENTAL
SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
14, 256-265 (1978)
The Effects of Observation on Emotional Arousal and Affiliation BARRY FISH,STUART KARABENICK Eastern Michigan
University
AND MYRON HEATH Boston College Received February 2, 1977 This study assessed the influence of anticipated experimenter surveillance during the performance of a painful or potentially embarrassing act on affiliative preferences before engaging in that act. As predicted, there was an overall preference for isolation when the act to be performed was embarrassing, and this tendency increased with anticipated surveillance. There was an overall preference for affiliation under fear arousal, and this preference also increased with anticipated surveillance. Contrary to previous research, whether or not the potential affiliate was a subject in the experiment (i.e., in a similar or dissimilar emotional state) did not affect these tendencies. Possible ways of accounting for these findings are discussed.
Schachter (1959) demonstrated that fear arousal increases the desire to affiliate with others who are presumably in a similar emotional state (similar-state others). To explain this finding, he proposed that emotionally aroused persons seek interaction with others in order to provide a basis for social comparison. Several studies support this explanation (e.g., Gerard, 1963; Gerard & Rabbie, 1961; Rabbie, 1964). However, the generality of Schachter’s findings to all emotional states was limited by Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s (1961) finding that when persons were about to perform an embarrassing task that the authors labeled as highly “anxiety” arousing (sucking on nipples, baby bottles, etc.), they preferred to affiliate less with similar-state others than did persons in a low anxiety control condition. They concluded that whereas fear increases affiliation, Portions of this study were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Convention, Chicago, 1977. Requests for reprints should be sent to Barry Fish, Department of Psychology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. We are indebted to Dr. Jack Hollis for his comments on earlier drafts of this article. 0022-1031/78/0143-0256$02.00/O Copyright 0 1978 by Academic Press, Inc. AI1 rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
256
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
257
anxiety reduces it.l An additional limitation was provided by Firestone, Kaplan, and Russel (1973), who found that subjects preferred isolation in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo “anxiety” situation only when the potential affiliate was ostensibly in a similar emotional state. However, subjects preferred affiliation when the affiliates were not about to undergo the embarrassment arousing task (dissimilar-state others), presumably because dissimilar-state others would provide a source of distraction from the impending task. Other investigators have raised questions about what aspect of ern5tionai arousal situations are crucial for affihative vs isolative tendencies. For example, Lynch, Watts, Galloway, and Tryphonopoulos (1973) found affiliation vs. isolation preferences to depend on whether the person perceives his emotional responses to be appropriate or inapthat the critical propriate, respectively. Teichman (1973) suggeste component of Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s “anxiety” m ipulation was the “embarrassment” or social ridicule anticipated when sucking on objects (cf. also, Buck & Park, 1972). She argued that without this specific component, isolation would not have been preferred. Teiehman proposed that a condition that engendered “general anxiety” but not embarrassment (telling subjects they would participate in a ‘“self-disclosure” situation without specifying exactiy what was expected of them in that situation) would increase affiliation in the same manner as fear. study compared high vs low general anxiety conditions to Sarnoff and Zimbardo’s specific conditions. As predicted, affihative preferences were higher in the general than in the specific anxiety condition. While Teichman’s data suggest that embarrassment plays a role in the decision to avoid affiliation, her general anxiety condition differed in several respects from the embarrassment condition used by Sarnoff and Zimbardo. Thus, it is possible that factors other than the reduced level of embarrassment may have increased affihative preferences under general anxiety conditions. For example, Teichman’s task required a verbal interaction with two interviewers while the original Sarnoff and Zimbardo task involved electrical measurements of a subject’s physiological responses while sucking on infantile objects. In addition, since the extent of self-disclosure was unspecified in Teichman’s condition, subjects may have desired affiliation to determine what others felt an appropriate amount of disclosure to be. This ambiguity was ’ Sarnoffand Zimbardo referred to this situation as “anxiety” arousing under the assumption that infantile “oral libido” had been aroused which generated concern abotit potential social disapproval from others. Although the term anxiety has been retained as a label for the sucking behavior condition in subsequent studies (e.g., Firestone, Kaplan. and Russell, 1973) the present study will use the term “embarrassment” which we propose is the critical factor for what is taking place. One purpose of this study is in fact to deter-mine whether that label is more appropriate than “anxiety.“
258
FISH,
KARABENICK,
AND
HEATH
not present in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo condition, where instructions left little room for doubt about the exact performance expected. The present study sought to provide more direct evidence for the role of embarrassment in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo “anxiety” condition. We did this by manipulating the situational characteristics assumed to produce embarrassment without changing the central features of the situation involved. A prominent feature of the Sarnoff and Zimbardo emotional arousal procedure (also used in subsequent investigations) in a slide presentation depicting a subject about to undergo his ordeal. In these scenes, an experimenter is standing close by, observing the subject’s reaction. It is reasonable to assume that persons viewing these slides expect the experimenter’s presence (i.e., an audience) during the testing situation. Suppose that embarrassment, and the consequent apprehension about revealing this embarrassment to others, is a critical determinant of the desire not to affiliate in the Sarnoff and Zimbardo manipulation, and that anticipated observation is a major contributor to this emotion. Then, the desire to be isolated should decrease as the anticipated privacy of the subject’s behavior increases, even when the behavior itself remains constant. To test this hypothesis, three observation levels were established. In one, subjects were led to believe that the experimenter would be present and also that their emotional responses would be electronically recorded. In the second, subjects were also told that their emotional responses would be permanently recorded, but it was made clear that the experimenter would not be observing the subject during this period. In the third, subjects were told that the experimenter would be absent and that no permanent record would be kept of their responses. The three observation levels were factorially combined with type of emotion arousal (embarrassment and fear). In addition, the type of affiliative target (similar or dissimilar-state other) was varied to determine whether the results of Firestone et al. (1973) would replicate and also whether the effect of target would vary with changes in observation level. Subjects were then told that there would be a delay before they engaged in the task, and were asked to what extent they preferred to wait alone or in the company of others. (Depending upon the target condition, these others were described as either coparticipants in the study or persons taking part in an unrelated experiment down the hall.) Self-report measures of fear, anxiety, and embarrassment were also obtained. Under embarrassment conditions, subjects were expected to prefer isolation; however, this preference was expected to decrease as the level of anticipated observation decreased. Under fear conditions, subjects were expected to prefer affiliation to isolation; however, there was no a priori reason to expect this preference to vary with observation level,
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
25
since subjects’ fear of shock was not expected to depend upon whether or not they anticipated being observed. Finally, based on the interpretation given to Firestone et al.‘s (1973) findings, the isolation-affiliation relations described above were expected only when the emotional state of the persons available to affiliate with was similar to that of the subject; opposite relations were expected when these persons were in a dissimilar emotional state. METHOD
Subjects Complete data were obtained from 120 male volunteers from introductory psychology classes. Subjects were scheduled in groups of three; each group was randomly assigned to one of 12 experimental conditions, resulting from a 2 x 3 x 2 between-subjects factorial design involving arousal type (fear vs embarrassment), observation level (high. medium, and low), and state of affiliative target (similar or dissimilar to the subject). Nine subjects were excluded from the experiment and replaced because they had previously known each other (5), misunderstood the instructions (2), did not believe the rationale (1), or elected not to continue as participants in the “stimulation” portion of the experiment (1). Undergraduate confederates were used to complete subject triads on occasions when this was necessary although, of course, their data were not included in the analyses.
Procedure Each individual within a group was assigned to arrive at a different reporting destination. When all of the subjects were present at their stations, the experimenter, wearing a white laboratory coat, introduced himself. The participants were then ushered into an apparatusladen research room. To avoid the development of superficial friendships during the experiment and to eliminate the possibility that subjects might react to cues from one another, the subjects were separated by high partitions and no communication was allowed. As in previous research, subjects were told this was a study in physiological psychology concerning the “reactions of the sense organs to various kinds of stimulation.” Subjects were told that it was necessary to assess their base rates of responding prior to the application of the actual stimuli, and they were led to believe that their individual sensitivities were being recorded (by wires attached to them and an operating polygraph) while they viewed a series of slides of a typical subject who had participated in the experiment. To provide a reasonable basis for asking the subjects to wait in other rooms (and thus for making the choice between affiliation and isolation), they were then told a period of time was necessary to adjust the equipment to their individual sensitivities. It was made clear to the subjects that they were to be tested individually during the “actual” experiment. Instructions were presented via a taperecording and slide presentation. The instructions to subjects in the high observation conditions were identical to the fear and anxiety manipulations used by Sarnoff and Zimbardo (1961) and Firestone et al. (1973). The only differences in the instructions given to the other groups consisted of information designed to manipulate the extent to which the subjects expected to be observed. In high observation conditions subjects were told that the experimenter would be present to “watch your reactions and record your readings,” while under medium observa?ion conditions they were told that “although a record of your physiological responses will be taken, no one will be in the room, nor will anyone observe you for the duration of the
260
FISH, KARABENICK,
AND HEATH
experiment.” Subjects in low observation conditions were told that no one would be present and that no permanent record would be made of their reactions. Instead, they were informed that they should observe their physiological reactions on an oscilloscope and report them to the researcher at the end of the experiment. A slide presentation during the experiment served two purposes. The content of the slides (appropriate to each experimental treatment) served to reinforce the subjects’ differential expectations of the nature of the stimulus situation. Furthermore, the person seen in the slides became a focal point for measuring the effectiveness of the experimental manipulations. Immediately after the slides were shown, but before the affiliation choice had been made, the subjects were given a questionnaire designed to assess their estimate of the fear, anxiety, and embarrassment levels of the subject in the slide. Subjects were asked to estimate these feelings by circling the word(s) “not at all,” “slightly,” “moderately,” or “very” that described the extent to which each of the emotions was felt. These ratings, along with subjects’ ratings of the other participants’ emotional states, were considered to be projective in nature, since the lack of opportunity for objective appraisal forced the subject to use his own responses as a measure of these others’ arousal. A third set of scales asked for a direct self-report of the subjects’ own feelings. Subjects then indicated their preference to wait alone or in the company of others. Under similar-state conditions, these others were ostensibly the subjects’ coparticipants in the study. Under dissimilar-state conditions, the others were described as students “taking part in an unrelated experiment down the hall.” These manipulations are identical to those used by Firestone et al. (1973). After the slides were presented, subjects were instructed that a waiting period would follow and that in the second, major part of the experiment their direct reactions to the actual stimuli would be measured. The subjects were then told that due to limited space it was not possible for everyone to get an individual room. Therefore, “to accomodate everyone fairly,” they were requested to indicate how strongly they preferred to wait alone or together. Subjects indicated their preference for waiting alone or with others, and then reported the intensity of this preference on a scale from 0 (very weak preference) to 100 (very strong preference).
RESULTS
Manipulation
Checks
To determine if manipulations had their intended emotional impact, subjects’ ratings of their emotional reactions were analyzed as a function of arousal condition (fear vs embarrassment), observation level (high, medium, low), state of affiliative target (similar vs. dissimilar), rating dimension (fear, embarrassment, anxiety), and rating target (self, person in slide, companions in the study). The latter two dimensions involved within-subject comparisons. The interaction of arousal condition and rating dimension was significant, F(2,216) = 68.52, p < .OOl. However, the nature of this interaction was contingent upon both observation level (F(2,216) = 3.03, p < .05), and rating target (F(4,432) = 2.16, p < .05). Data pertainipg to the first of these contingencies are shown in Table 1. Fear ratings across observation levels were significantly higher under fear than under embarrassment conditions, while embarrassment ratings
26
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION TABLE
1
Rating dimension Arousal condition
Observation level
Fear
Embarrassment
High Medium Low Total
1.13 1.60 1.18 1.30’
Fear
High Medium Low Total
2.48 2.01 1.78 2.110
Embarrassment
Anxiety
Total
1.97 2.02 1.80 1.936
1.82 2.27 1.90 I.996
1.64 1.96 1.63 1.74
1.27 1.10 1.32 1.23’
2.42 1.94 I.92 2.08”
2.06 1.70 1.67 1.8i
a The rating scale ranged between 1 = not at all, to 4 = very. b,eMeans (totals across observation levels) with same superscript are not significantly different from each other; other comparisons: p < .01.
were significantly higher under embarrassment than under fear conditions. Anxiety ratings did not differ as a function of conditions. As evident from the above mentioned contingency involving rating target, these differences were greater in the case of self-ratings than in the case of ratings of other participants or of the person depicted in the slide. However, the pattern was the same for a11 targets. Thus, the interpretation of the Sarnoff and Zimbardo condition as one of embarrassment arousal is justified. The contingencies involving observation level were small and difficult to interpret. Under embarrassment conditions, ratings of all three emotions were higher when the observation level was moderate than wher! it was either high or low. Under fear conditions, both fear and anxiety ratings increased with observation level, whereas embarrassment ratings did not. Correlations among emotional ratings were computed within arousal conditions and are shown in Table 2. Fear and anxiety ratings were correlated in both conditions, while embarrassment ratings were essentially independent of both fear and anxiety. Emotional
Arousal and Affiliative
Tendency
Preferences to affiliate with others were assessed in two related ways: Choice of alone vs together and strength of preference. Strength of preference scores were transformed to a single scale with values from 0 to -100 indicating an increasing preference for isolation, and from 0 to 100 an increasing desire for affiliation
262
FISH, KARABENICK, TABLE
CORRELATIONSAMONGEMOTIONAL Arousal condition Fear
Embarrassment
AND HEATH 2
AROUSALRATINGSANDAFFILIATIVETENDENCY
Rating dimension
Fear
Fear Embarrassment Anxiety
-.07 .60”
Fear Embarrassment Anxiety
-.17 .57”
Embarrassment
Affiliative tendency
.06
.32a .03 .38”
.12
.1.5 -.I3 .04
“p < .05. bp < .Ol. cp < .OOl.
Both dependent variables were analyzed using analysis of variance.2 The proportion of persons opting to affiliate with others was significantly higher in the fear (82%) than in the anxiety (42%) arousal conditions, F( 1,108) = 27.17, p < .OOl. Likewise, the strength of affiliative choice was significantly greater in the fear (x = 26) than anxiety (k = -10) conditions, F(l,lOS) = 23.74, p < .OOl. However, the arousal condition x observation level interaction was significant for both affiliative choice, F(2,108) = 3.43, p < .05, and strength of choice, F(2,108) = 4.35, p < .05. The nature of these interactions is shown in Fig. 1. As expected, subjects’ preference for affiliation in the embarrassment condition increased with the anticipated privacy of their impending behavior. However, the tendency to affiliate in the fear arousal condition decreased as the privacy of the impending behavior increased. The relation between emotional arousal and affiliative tendency is also suggested by the correlations between subjects’ self-ratings of their reactions and strength of affiliation preferences. These correlations are shown in Table 2. Under fear conditions, both fear and anxiety ratings were correlated significantly positive with preference for affiliation but embarrassment ratings were not. Under embarrassment conditions, however, neither fear nor anxiety ratings were significantly correlated with preferences for affiliation, whereas embarrassment ratings were correlated nonsignificantly negative with these preferences. It might be noted that the negative correlation between embarrassment ratings and 2 The justification for analyzing the dichotomous choice measure using analysis of variance is given by Lunney (1970). This analysis is done by assigning 1 for alone and 2 for together. He suggested at least 40 df in the error term when proportions in cells were extreme (e.g., less than .20 orgreater than .80). The present analyses had minimumdfs of 108.
EFFECTS
HIGH
MEDIUM
263
OF OBSERVATION
LOW
OBSERVATION
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
LEVEL
FIG. 1. Choice and strength of affiliation as a function of emotional arousal and observation level.
affiliation was marginally different from that between fear and affiliation in the anxiety condition (-15 vs - .13, t(58) = 1.67, p < .10, two tailed). None of the effects involving affiliative target (similar- vs dissimilarstate other) was significant for either dependent measure. Thus, despite the careful attempt to reestablish the conditions present in Firestone et al. (1973), there is no evidence to substantiate their state of affliative target effect. DlSClJSSlON The results of this study suggest that the affiliative effects of “anxiety” arousal employed in previous research (Firestone et al., 1973; Sarnoff & Zimbardo, 1961) are attributable instead to embarrassment. Three aspects of these results are of particular importance in this regard. First, subjective ratings of fear and embarrassment differed in the predicted way between arousal conditions, whereas anxiety ratings did not. Second, arousal conditions experienced as uniquely embarrassing were marked by preferences for isolation. Third, isolative tendencies under conditions marked by embarrassment decreased in direct correspondence with the degree of anticipated monitoring (80% with high, 45% with low monitoring), though the subjects’ task remained the same. Contrary to expectation, however, self-reports of embarrassment
264
FISH,
KARABENICK,
AND
HEATH
did not consistently increase with observation level. This presents a problem in interpreting the results. It may be that people are unable to discriminate embarrassment as finely as fear, perhaps because they are more familiar with the latter emotion. It is also possible that while embarrassment is the factor that leads to a general preference for isolation under these conditions, other cognitive and/or emotional factors may be responsible for observation level effects. The data do not permit further specification of what these factors may be, however. Also unanticipated was the finding that under fear conditions, selfreported fear anxiety, and also affiliative preferences, increased with observation level. It is not apparent why the anticipated pain from shock would depend on an observer being present at the time it was administered. One possible explanation is that persons anticipated a less dangerous shock when administered in the absence of the experimenter. However, since no measure of perceived anticipated shock level was obtained, there is no way to evaluate this possibility directly. A third unexpected finding was the failure for affiliative preferences to depend upon whether the potential affiliate’s emotional state was similar to that of the subject. In contrast to previous findings (Firestone et al., 1973), persons responded no differently to the prospect of waiting with nonparticipants than they did to the prospect of waiting with coparticipants in the study. Since great pains were taken in the present study to insure conditions comparable to Sarnoff and Zimbardo and Firestone et al. (and an analysis of subjects’ fear and anxiety ratings revealed these emotional levels to be virtually equivalent to Firestone et al.) an explanation of the absence of affiliation effects is not likely found in treatment differences between the studies. Furthermore, the other effects (of fear vs embarrassment and the resulting affiliative patterns with similarstate others) WeYe found. Firestone et al. assumed that embarrassed (referred to by them as “anxious”) subjects would seek out dissimilar others as a source of distraction, i.e., to avoid thinking about the impending stressful event. While distraction may be possible and desirable for disturbing events in the not too immediate future, it seems unlikely that people would be desirous or capable of diverting their attention from a highly arousing event moments before its occurrence. Perhaps affiliation is not an allpurpose bromide, and some types of misery (embarrassment) do not prefer any type of company. In any event, the present study represents a failure to replicate the previous finding. The impact of the experimenter’s anticipated presence found here suggests that this variable should receive more attention in future studies. While the expectation of being observed acted to enhance existing tendencies in the present study (perhaps an anticipated social facilitation effect, see Zajonc, 1965) the potential for more complicated interaction
26.5
EFFECTS OF OBSERVATION
effects with other experimentally considered.
generated
emotional
states must be
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Gerard, H. B., & Rabbie, J. M. Fear and social comparison. Journal of Abnormrri and Social Psychology, 1961, 62, 586-592. Lunney. G. H. Using analysis of variance with a dichotomous dependent variable: An empirical study. Journal of Educational Measurement, 1970, 7, 263-269. Lynch, S., Watts, W. A., Galloway, C., & Tryphonopoulos, S. Appropriateness of anxiety and drive for affiliation. Journal of Research in Personality, 1973, 7, 71-77. Rabbie, 4. M. Differential preference for companionship under threat. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964, 67, 643-648. Sarnoff, I., & Zimbardo, P. G. Anxiety, fear, and social affiliation. Journal of Abnormal and Social
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Schachter, S. The psychology of affiliation. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1959. Teichman, Y. Emotional arousal and affiliation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychoiogy, 1973, 9, 591-605. Zajonc, R. B. Social facilitation. Science, 1965, 149, 269-274.