The study investigates three subscales of manifest anxiety, consisting of symptoms of striated muscle tension, symptoms of autonomic arousal, and feelings of fear and insecurity. There was both a general factor of anxiety and a specific factor associated with striated muscle tension. Further evidence for the specific nature of striated muscle tension was indicated by its positive relationship to feelings of hostility, its failure to relate to a personality variable of inhibition, and the relatively high score obtained by males. It was hypothesized that striated muscle tension is more closely associated with overt activity than autonomic symptoms, which represent a deeper level of inhibition. Discrepant results of studies using the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale may be due to a failure to take into account the differential contribution of items relating to different kinds of anxiety.
33 experienced and 33 novice parachutists rated their approach and avoidance feelings at different points in time preceding and following a parachute jump. For the novice parachutists, self-rated avoidance increased up to a point shortly before the jump, and then decreased. For the experienced parachutists, self-rated avoidance increased up to the morning of the jump, decreased to the jump, and increased after the jump. It was concluded that with experience the point of greatest anxiety is displaced backward in time. To account for this phenomenon, a miniature theory was presented which assumed that with continuous exposure to threat, 2 developments take place, a heightening of the gradient of anxiety and the development of a gradient of inhibition of anxiety, the latter having the steeper slope.
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