A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF MANIFEST ANXIETY AND SITUATIONAL STRESS ON M-l RIFLE FIRING

摘要

Interest in the question of whether anxiety level is a determiner of reaction to conditions of stress stems both from opinions of clinical and military observers and from current behavior theory. A prevailing opinion in clinical psychology is that anxiety is the core of neuroses and that neurotics tend to break down under stress sooner than normal persons. Furthermore, many professional military observers hold the opinion that men who don't hold up in combat can be spotted in pre-combat phases as "acting sort of queer" or "being a little off". It roughly follows from these notions that men with high levels of anxiety might be expected to lose more in marksmanship proficiency under stress than will men with low levels of anxiety.nThe results will also have a bearing on current behavior theory in which there is the problem of specifying the manner in which different motivational variables combine to determine response strength. If men with high and low anxiety levels react differently to stress it would imply that anxiety and stress do not combine in a simple additive fashion.