Ninety public offenders were selected to represent low, medium, and high levels of anxiety and low and high levels of sociopathy. Subjects were exposed to an avoidance situation under either low, medium, or high levels of background auditory stimulation. The avoidance task allowed shock to be averted through appropriate active and passive avoidance responses in the presence of visually presented cues. Anxiety, sociopathy, and auditory stimulus intensity interacted in their effects on avoidance behavior. Primary sociopaths learned to avoid shock more effectively under conditions of higher auditory stimulus intensity, while avoidance behavior of control subjects was not affected by changes in the level of auditory stimulation.
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